'Home Improvement' star arrested

Name: 'Home Improvement' star arrested
Uploaded: 2026-09-23T22:28:51.000Z
Duration: 30 s
Description: Deputies found the car stopped dead at a green light, blocking the intersection of Westlake Boulevard and Townsgate Road in Westlake Village. It was about 12:30 a.m. on Monday, September 21, 2026. They pulled alongside to see whether the driver needed help and quickly noticed the person behind the wheel appeared intoxicated.

KTLA 5Sep 23, 2026

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Deputies found the car stopped dead at a green light, blocking the intersection of Westlake Boulevard and Townsgate Road in Westlake Village. It was about 12:30 a.m. on Monday, September 21, 2026. They pulled alongside to see whether the driver needed help and quickly noticed the person behind the wheel appeared intoxicated.

Field sobriety tests began on the driver. The passenger was Jonathan Taylor Thomas, 45, whose legal name is Jonathan Taylor Thomas Weiss. While the tests continued, Thomas repeatedly got out of the vehicle and approached the deputies even after they ordered him to stay seated. A law enforcement source later described the sequence to People magazine: "The driver was being detained for DUI investigation. Sometime during the investigation, Mr. Taylor decided he would exit the vehicle. Deputies told him to sit back down in the vehicle. He was uncooperative with them, failed to follow orders, and obstructed the investigation, so he was arrested for obstruction, and he was arrested for drunk in public."

When deputies moved to detain him for obstruction and public intoxication, Thomas allegedly kicked a deputy in the stomach. He was taken into custody. The driver was arrested separately on suspicion of DUI. Authorities did not release the driver’s identity.

Thomas was booked at 1:50 a.m. at the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station in Agoura Hills on suspicion of felony obstruction and resisting an executive officer, along with public intoxication. Jail records showed he was released roughly 34 hours later, on Tuesday. As of the reporting, no charges had been filed. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said the case would be submitted to the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office for filing consideration.

Thomas first became widely known in the early 1990s as Randy Taylor, the middle son on the ABC sitcom Home Improvement. The series, which ran from 1991 to 1999, centered on Tim Allen as the father, Tim “The Toolman” Taylor, Patricia Richardson as mother Jill Taylor, Zachery Ty Bryan as oldest son Brad, and Taran Noah Smith as youngest son Mark. Thomas left during the show’s eighth and final season. He had also voiced young Simba in Disney’s 1994 animated film The Lion King and appeared in live-action features including Man of the House, Tom and Huck, The Adventures of Pinocchio, and I’ll Be Home for Christmas. Later guest roles included appearances on 8 Simple Rules, Veronica Mars, and Smallville. His last credited acting work came in four episodes of Allen’s later sitcom Last Man Standing between 2013 and 2015; he also directed three episodes of that series.

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In a 2013 interview with People he explained the earlier decision to step back: "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 enrolled at Harvard to study philosophy and history, spent time at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, and later graduated from Columbia University’s School of General Studies.

Months before the Westlake Village stop, in July 2026, Patricia Richardson posted an Instagram photograph of herself standing with Thomas and Taran Noah Smith. She captioned the image “My other boys.” The picture offered a rare public glimpse of the three together more than twenty-five years after Home Improvement ended. Richardson had played Jill Taylor for the show’s entire run; Smith had played Mark. Zachery Ty Bryan, who portrayed Brad, was not in that particular reunion frame.

The early-morning traffic stop began simply because a car sat motionless at a green light. By the time it ended, both the driver and the passenger were in custody, one for suspected DUI and the other for obstruction and public intoxication after he left the vehicle, ignored orders, and allegedly kicked a deputy. Thomas was held at the Malibu/Lost Hills station and walked out more than a day later. The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office had not yet announced whether charges would follow.