Tom Selleck is still frustrated by the cancellation of “Blue Bloods” two years ago, as the iconic actor revealed the cast agreed to a shocking 25% pay cut before it was axed.
“Blue Bloods was a labor of love… I think for everybody,” Selleck said during Wednesday’s episode of Ted Danson’s podcast, “Where Everybody Knows Your Name.”
Selleck — who played New York City Police Commissioner Frank Reagan on the CBS police drama — also revealed that the star-studded cast took the dramatic pay cut in hopes of returning for another season, calling the situation “frustrating.”
“The real truth to that is in the last year of [the series], at our last family dinner, everybody wanted to come back. We’d already taken a 25% cut in salary,” he divulged, insisting they’d “done all sorts of things to keep the show going.”
Still, CBS announced the cancellation of “Blue Bloods” in 2023, with the 14th and final season concluding in December 2024.
Selleck claimed that “out of the top 100 shows on broadcast television, ‘Blue Bloods’ was number six in our fifteenth year.”
“Nobody wanted to leave. Everybody was gonna stay on,” he continued. “That’s hard to get. It may be some kind of record to have the same cast intact for that length of time.”
Selleck revealed that he enjoyed working on the show, which also starred Donnie Wahlberg, Bridget Moynahan and Will Estes — among others.
“Maybe people don’t realize, but a lot of shows become miserable to work on,” he told the “Cheers” actor.
He added: “You get a lot of egos and ‘I’m not coming out of my dressing room until he’s coming out’ … and it’s miserable.”
Selleck claimed that the police procedural, which began airing in September 2010, “was never that.”
A rep for CBS Entertainment did not immediately respond to Page Six’s request for comment Wednesday.
This isn’t the first time the “Magnum, P.I.” star has blasted the network for cancelling the series.
“I’m kind of frustrated,” Selleck told TV Insider in October 2024. “During those last eight shows, I haven’t wanted to talk about an ending for ‘Blue Bloods’ but about it still being wildly successful.”
Selleck also said at the time that the “show was always taken for granted because it performed from the get-go. So how do I feel? It’s going to take a long time to sort all of this out.”
Prior to that, in May 2024, he divulged that the loss of the show put him at risk of losing his Ventura County, Calif., ranch.
“That’s always an issue. If I stopped working, yeah. Am I set for life? Yeah, but maybe not on a 63-acre ranch!” the “Friends” alum told “CBS Sunday Morning” at the time.
That same month, he ranted to Town & Country that the TV industry is “constantly in flux.”
“I don’t want to sound like an old timer and say it’s not as good as it used to be, but … I just don’t see the development and belief in projects,” he said.
At the time, the actor still had hope that the series wouldn’t end. “I still hold out hope that CBS will come to their senses,” Selleck told the outlet.
In March, actor Mika Amonsen of spinoff series “Boston Blue” — who has never met Selleck — said a cameo conversation with Selleck “was definitely there, for sure.”
“I would just be happy he was there,” Amonsen told Page Six. “I know how much fans want him to be on the show.”
Selleck, 81, told Hour Detroit in November he didn’t “know if [he] would do ‘Boston Blue,’” adding, “That’s another show.”
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