‘Blue Bloods’ Star Tom Selleck Details ‘Frustrating’ Cancellation After Taking 25% Pay Cut

Tom Selleck said he is still frustrated by the cancellation of “Blue Bloods” after the cast did everything in its power to keep the show running — including taking a 25% pay cut. The CBS police procedural followed the Reagan family, a multigenerational New York law enforcement family led by NYPD Commissioner Frank Reagan (Selleck). Its ensemble also included Donnie Wahlberg as Danny Reagan, Bridget Moynahan as Erin Reagan and Will Estes as Jamie Reagan. The drama ran for 14 seasons, wrapping up in 2024. Despite the show’s long-running success with fans, Selleck detailed some of the behind-the-scenes issues involved in keeping the show going during Wednesday’s episode of “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” with Ted Danson. “’Blue Bloods’ was a labor of love … I think for everybody,” he said explaining how close the show’s cast had become during the course of filming. “The real truth to that is in the last year of [‘Blue Bloods’], at our last family dinner, everybody wanted to come back.” The actor added that most of the cast had “already taken a 25 percent cut in salary” to keep the show going. Despite the cast’s best efforts, CBS pulled the plug on the long-running show in November 2023. The final, 14th season was split into two parts, with the series finale airing in December 2024. Selleck said he was not only frustrated by how many concessions the cast made to keep the show on air, but also that it remained extremely popular with audiences. “It was very frustrating because … out of the top 100 shows on broadcast television, ‘Blue Bloods’ was number six in our fifteenth year,” Selleck said. “Nobody wanted to leave. Everybody was gonna stay on. That’s hard to get. It may be some kind of record to have the same cast intact for that length of time. Usually if it wasn’t a family, it would be different, but you know, you couldn’t very well replace Jamie or Danny or anybody with another actor.”Selleck added that many don’t realize “a lot of shows become miserable to work on.” The feeling was something Danson could likely relate to after starring on “Cheers” for 11 seasons. In the past, he has been open about the ups and downs he experienced with the sitcom over the course of its run.“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,” he added. “‘Blue Bloods’ was never that.” You can listen to Selleck’s full episode here.