Jonathan Taylor Thomas, the "Home Improvement" alum was arrested in California at the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station on Monday. According to a report in E!Online, Jonathan Taylor Weiss was detained by police after an altercation at a traffic stop in Los Angeles' West Lake Village on Sept. 21, the Los Angeles Sheriffs' Department said. The jail records showed that he released from custody on Tuesday for allegedly obstructing or resisting an executive officer. He allegedly kicked the deputy in the stomach, according to the report.
Now in his 40s, Thomas lives a relatively quiet life and rarely appears in public. However, he apparently stays in touch with some of his former co-stars and contemporaries. He and fellow teen star Danielle Fishel, who played the smart Topanga on Boy Meets World, dated when they were younger and are still friends. As she told Complex in May 2025, the two had recently talked about a specific pair of Home Improvement-branded Nikes that had become a nostalgic collector’s item.
“For their 100th episode, they made those sneakers and I literally just texted Jonathan last night to see if he has them. He had no idea they had gone viral. He was like ‘What are you talking about?’” Fishel said. “He said, ‘Yeah, I think I have them. They’re in a box somewhere,’ so next on my agenda is to go raiding his attic.”
Richardson told the Back to the Best podcast that Thomas is not very interested in acting. “He’s not really interested in acting,” Richardson said. “He wants to direct and write.”
Thomas has already started working in that direction. He directed three episodes of Last Man Standing. He also acted in a few episodes of the show, including one episode with both Allen and Richardson.
In January 2025, Allen said Thomas visited the set of his current sitcom, Shifting Gears, and did not rule out a future JTT cameo. “Everything is a possibility… He just came back [to the last episode we filmed]. He showed up on the set,” Allen told Us Weekly. “He’s literally my kid. I raised that kid for eight years on Home Improvement.”
In July 2026, Richardson shared a photo on Instagram in which she posed with Thomas and their co-star Taran Noah Smith.
The 45-year-old Jonathan Taylor Thomas was riding in the passenger seat of a vehicle that was pulled over in Westlake Village, California. TMZ reported that during the traffic stop, the former child star was reportedly “uncooperative” and acting “drunk in public.” The report also claimed that Jonathan Thomas stepped outside the vehicle at one point — despite authorities asking him to remain inside.
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What happened with Jonathan Taylor Thomas?
Los Angeles officials were patrolling the area when they noticed a vehicle stopped at an intersection "with a green light blocking traffic," according to the arrest report obtained by E! Sept. 23. When the deputies approached the car, in which Jonathan Taylor Thomas was sitting in the passenger seat, they described the driver as "acting odd" and appearing "intoxicated."
"While field sobriety tests were being performed on the driver," the report continued, "the passenger (Jonathan Weiss) appeared intoxicated, continually exited the vehicle and approached the deputies, distracting them from their investigation."
Jonathan Taylor Thomas' uncooperative behavior did nodt stop there, police alleged. After police tried to detain him, they said that the 45-year-old "kicked a deputy in the stomach," per the report. Thomas was arrested and booked at the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station for obstruction and public intoxication. The vehicle’s unidentified driver was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol.
Just months before his arrest, Jonathan Taylor Thomas stepped away from Hollywood in 2015. He returned to the spotlight to reunite with his former Home Improvement costars Patricia Richardson and Taran Noah Smith. Thomas was among the most popular teen idols of the 1990s. He rose to fame playing Randy Taylor, son of Tim Allen’s handyman TV host Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor, on the mega-popular sitcom Home Improvement. At the height of his fame, however, he began stepping away from Hollywood, though he has made occasional returns — even reuniting with his former TV dad on ABC’s Last Man Standing.
Thomas rose to fame as the mischievous Randy Taylor, the middle son on Home Improvement. That helped lead to his voice role of young Simba in The Lion King. The character’s conversations with Mufasa (James Earl Jones) and burgeoning friendship with Timon (Nathan Lane) and Pumbaa (Ernie Sabella) more or less immortalized JTT’s voice in pop culture.
