Jonathan Taylor Thomas made a rare public appearance to catch up with his former Home Improvement costars Patricia Richardson and Taran Noah Smith more than two decades after the show’s finale.
“My other boys ❤️,” Richardson, 75, wrote via Instagram on Wednesday, July 29, sharing a new photo with Smith, 42, and Thomas, 44, on either side of the actress.
Smith and Thomas portrayed two of Richardson and TV husband Tim Allen’s sons on Home Improvement, which ran from 1991 to 1999. Teen icon Thomas, for his part, took a step back from acting ahead of the final season to attend college.
“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,” Thomas explained in a 1998 interview. “To sit in a big library amongst books and students, that was pretty cool. It was a novel experience for me.”
The next year, Thomas reiterated that he made “a good decision” for himself.
“I made such a good decision,” he told reporters at the 1999 Kids’ Choice Awards. “Had I stayed at the show and tried to do academically what I’m doing now, I would’ve, you know, put myself in an early grave.”
As Thomas pursued a career outside of Hollywood, he resigned from the limelight entirely.
“Jonathan’s not really interested in acting, he wants to direct and write,” Richardson said on the “Back to the Best” podcast in 2024, noting she was regularly in touch with her former TV sons Thomas and Smith. “Taran [also] hasn’t acted since he left the show. He’s not an actor anymore.”
Richardson, for her part, has since reunited with Allen, 73, on his sitcoms Last Man Standing and Shifting Gears. Allen further teased that the door is open to his former TV sons also making cameos.
“Everything is a possibility. [Jonathan] just came back,” Allen exclusively told Us in 2025, revealing Thomas made an appearance off-camera. “He showed up on the set. He’s literally my kid. I raised that kid for eight years on Home Improvement.”
Thomas, who appeared on four episodes of Last Man Standing, also directed a handful of episodes of the now-wrapped sitcom.
“It took a while for me to be that [father figure],” Allen told Us in a January interview. “I felt like more of a funny, mischievous older brother for quite a while — especially to the boys on Home Improvement.”
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