Home Improvement’s Jonathan Taylor Thomas Seen After Drunken Arrest

Former Home Improvement star Jonathan Taylor Thomas appeared disheveled Thursday in his first public sighting since his arrest earlier this week.

The 45-year-old actor was photographed getting some fresh air in Los Angeles, according to images obtained by Our News Outlet.

Thomas has largely stayed out of the public eye since being arrested on suspicion of obstruction and public intoxication.

Police alleged in a press release obtained by Our News Outlet that the former child star was intoxicated and “kicked a deputy in the stomach” during the encounter.

After the arrest, sources close to Thomas told Our News Outlet that he has recently struggled with frustration over a Hollywood career that did not develop as he had hoped. Having turned 45 only weeks ago, the sources said they fear he believes it may be too late to revive his ambitions.

Our News Outlet has contacted Thomas’s representatives for comment but has not received a response.

Thomas was seen on a patio wearing a plain black T-shirt and jeans, with his shaggy dark hair adding to his unkempt appearance.

One source who spoke with Our News Outlet offered insight into Thomas’s state of mind in recent days.

“He is kind of a grumpy guy; he can be negative, like woe is me,” the source said.

“Jonathan is depressed. He wishes his career would be better off. He really wanted to become a director and be a bigger deal behind the camera, but it has not worked out,” the source added.

The source said Thomas has also begun to dwell on his age.

“He just turned 45 and thinks that maybe his time has passed, that he lost out in Hollywood, which is sad because he is super intelligent and a good person,” the insider said.

The source also suggested that Thomas’s early success as a child actor continues to shape how he is viewed.

“No one ever got past that he was the kid on Home Improvement, and he still kind of has kid looks, so I think that has hurt him,” the source said.

“Hollywood is tough; it’s not his fault, it’s just a tough business, and work has really slowed down a ton in LA, so there is not much work for people,” the source said, adding, “Hopefully he bounces back from this.”

The source was also consternated by Thomas’s run-in with the law and struggled to understand how things could have escalated so disastrously. 

‘The story is really strange; he wasn’t even driving the car,’ they mused. ‘If he just kept his mouth shut, he would have been fine, but he had to get mad, and now he is back in the news for all the wrong reasons.

‘Jonathan clearly was just having a really bad night,’ the insider added. ‘He really messed up.’

Another source told Our News Outlet that Thomas’s arrest had further damaged the already shaky chances of Home Improvement ever being revived, following the ‘never-ending struggles’ to get it in motion and ‘the substantial loss of Earl [Hindman], who played Wilson.

‘The chances of doing any sort of reboot is pretty much impossible,’ the second source said, before clarifying, ‘Not that anything was in the works; this incident makes it that much more impossible.’

They revealed that Thomas was living in fear of more damaging information emerging about his arrest and confrontation with police.

‘Jonathan is extremely embarrassed and has no excuses for what he did and is horrified about if and when the body cam footage comes out,’ the source continued. ‘To think that something like that will be out there – and out there forever – is a terrible feeling.’

They added that for someone who is as ‘private’ as Thomas has been in recent years, the arrest ‘would be a stain on everything he believes in, because he believes in being a normal person, and an upright citizen who causes no problems. 

The second source added: ‘He’s taking this very hard, and he is very upset with himself.’

According to the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department, the arrest occurred in Westlake Village, California, when deputies spotted a vehicle blocking traffic at an intersection. 

In a press release obtained by Our News Outlet, 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, Thomas – who was not driving – ‘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 said.

Thomas was arrested, transported and booked on charges 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 the LA County Sheriff’s inmate information center, Thomas’s obstruction charge has been placed at a felony level. 

A representative for Thomas had no comment when contacted by Our News Outlet.  

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.

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.

‘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. 

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, except for four episodes in which he made guest appearances 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.