Home Improvement icon Jonathan Taylor Thomas arrested for obstruction and public
Former child star Jonathan Taylor Thomas has been arrested for obstruction and public intoxication after he allegedly kicked a deputy in the stomach.
The actor, 45, who starred in the sitcom Home Improvement, was apprehended after he allegedly distracted deputies from conducting a field sobriety test on the driver of a car he was a passenger of, The Daily Mail has learned.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department claim the arrest occurred Monday in Westlake Village, California when deputies observed a vehicle blocking traffic at an intersection and pulled the car over to see if assistance was needed.
In a press release obtained by The Daily Mail, the department said deputies noticed the driver seemed intoxicated and was behaving oddly, prompting them to perform an investigation for driving under the influence.
As field sobriety tests were being conducted, Taylor ‘continually exited the vehicle and approached the deputies, distracting them from their investigation,’ according to the press release.
‘Deputies attempted to detain Weiss for obstruction and public intoxication, at which point, Weiss [Thomas] kicked a deputy in the stomach,’ the release further alleged.
Former child star Jonathan Taylor Thomas has been arrested for obstruction and public intoxication after he allegedly kicked a deputy in the stomach during a traffic stop; pictured 2013
Thomas was a massive star in the 90s, with roles in The Lion King, Man of the House, and the series Home Improvement
Thomas was arrested, transported, and booked on chares of obstruction and public intoxication at the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station. He was released the following day.
The driver of the vehicle was also arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol.
According to LA County Sheriff’s inmate information center, the charge has been placed at a felony level.
A representative for Thomas had no comment when contacted by The Daily Mail.
Thomas was a massive star in the 90s, with roles in The Lion King, Man of the House, and the series Home Improvement.
The hit show ran for eight seasons from 1991 to 1999, led by Tim Allen and Patricia Richardson as a suburban couple with three young sons played by Zachery Ty Bryan, Thomas, and Taran Noah Smith.
Thomas, who played middle child Randy Taylor, quit acting in 2006, briefly returning to the screen only for a four-episode guest shot on Allen’s sitcom Last Man Standing from 2013 through 2015.
Since 2017, Thomas has served as a national board member of the media labor union SAG-AFTRA.
Thomas played Randy Taylor, the son of Tim Allen and Patricia Richardson in Home Improvement
Thomas with co-star Taran Noah Smith in an episode of the show
Smith left show business entirely after the show ended in 1999, and in the intervening decades has pursued such varied professional ventures as a vegan restaurant and a company that teaches people how to pilot submarines.
Bryan’s post-show life has taken the most fraught trajectory, with a string of arrests for offenses like domestic violence and DUI.
In 2013 Thomas told People, ‘I’d been going nonstop since I was 8 years old. I wanted to go to school, to travel and have a bit of a break.
He later studied at Harvard and Columbia.
Thomas, pictured 1996, quit acting in 2006
The Hollywood icon appearing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in 1997
‘I never took the fame too seriously,’ he added. ‘It was a great period in my life, but it doesn’t define me. When I think back on the time, I look at it with a wink. I focus on the good moments I had, not that I was on a lot of magazine covers.’
Allen recently remarked that his co-stars’ ‘issues’ have made the prospect of a Home Improvement revival ‘difficult, to say the least,’ via Us Weekly.
‘They keep talking about how it could move forward, but they get stuck [because] there are some personality problems right now with the boys,’ he said.
‘They’ve got their own issues. I always thought it would be cool if it was a story about them. That’s a little challenging right now, to put it mildly.’
Home Improvement proved to be one of the most popular sitcoms of the 1990s, marking Allen’s emergence as a star actor after years as a stand-up comic.
Home Improvement ran for eight seasons from 1991 to 1999
Allen led the cast as a suburban father who hosts a TV show called Tool Time with a friend played by Richard Karn and a female foil, who for part of the series’ run was a character portrayed by Pamela Anderson.
Other than Allen, the actor on the show who achieved the greatest celebrity was Thomas, who in 1994 was also the voice of young Simba in The Lion King.
However his career fizzled after Home Improvement ended and he gave up on acting altogether in 2006, with the exception of his four episodes on Allen’s subsequent hit sitcom a decade later.
A couple of years ago, Allen claimed he had been ‘talking about a spinoff’ of Home Improvement with his onscreen sons and Richard Karn, per Entertainment Weekly.
Patricia Richardson, however, disputed his story, saying she had spoken to Thomas and he denied Allen had contacted him about a new show.
Richardson noted further that Thomas was ‘not really interested in acting’ any longer and rather ‘wants to direct and write,’ on the podcast Back to the Best.