Tom Selleck spoke out again about the “frustrating” Blue Bloods cancellation, this time highlighting the fact that he and his costars took big pay cuts for Season 14 to help alleviate costs, a move they were willing to make again to keep the show running.
Selleck discussed Blue Bloods’ cancellation in an interview with Ted Danson on his podcast called Where Everybody Knows Your Name.
“Blue Bloods was a labor of love… I think for everybody,” Selleck told Danson.
The actor added that at the last family dinner, “everybody wanted to come back” and most of the cast had “already taken a 25 percent cut in salary” to keep the show going.
The drama ran for 14 seasons, wrapping up in 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, noting that “out of the top 100 shows on broadcast television, ‘Blue Bloods’ was number six in our fifteenth year.”
Selleck continued.
“If you were to say to the television network, ‘Here’s a show you can program in the worst time slot you got, and it is going to guarantee you winning Friday night for the next 15 years,’ it would be almost impossible to believe.”
Selleck also said, “My frustration is the show was always taken for granted because it performed from the get-go.”
Despite the cast’s best efforts, CBS pulled the plug on the long-running show in November 2023.
Selleck explained to Danson that at the cast’s last family dinner in the final year, “everybody wanted to come back. We’d already taken a 25 percent cut in salary.”
The veteran actor described what the show meant to the cast.
Selleck said, “Maybe people don’t realize, but a lot of shows become miserable to work on. 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. Blue Bloods was never that.”
The ensemble also included Donnie Wahlberg as Danny Reagan, Bridget Moynahan as Erin Reagan and Will Estes as Jamie Reagan.
Selleck emphasized the show’s rare chemistry.
Everyone was committed to returning for another season, according to Selleck.
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.
Blue Bloods had been one of the most consistently watched shows on CBS and had sometimes won Friday night, beating out other programs — episodes averaged 5 million live viewers.
The network stood firm in its decision despite cast pleas.
CBS Entertainment President Amy Reisenbach said in May 2024, “We really want to thank the cast and crew, everyone involved in the show. We absolutely will miss the family dinners. We love this cast – we love their passion for the show. We are going to end the show come December.”
On the last day of filming, Selleck recalled that “it was just suddenly when somebody said, ‘Well, we have to wrap it’—it was very quiet for a while. I ended up saying a poem from Edna St. Vincent Millay—’Love is Not All’—and that kind of started a discussion that lasted a couple hours. There were some tears and some hugs and group hugs, single hugs. Nobody wanted it to end.”
In the viral moment that defined the show’s final season, the cast had made a dramatic gesture to keep the series alive by accepting steep salary reductions in March 2023.
Blue Bloods’ stars and producers had agreed to take a significant pay cut in order to greenlight the renewal of the police drama for a 14th season, with sources close to the show saying the renewal came only after its stars and key producers accepted a pay reduction of 25 per cent.
The decision to cancel the show was largely based on cost, with cast members agreeing to take up to a 25% pay cut to keep it on the air, while CBS President Amy Reisenbach emphasized the importance of giving Blue Bloods a proper ending.
Selleck had previously made his frustrations public.
Selleck said in an interview with CBS News, “I will continue to think that CBS will come to their senses. We’re the third-highest scripted show in all of broadcast. We’re winning the night.”
Now, the Reagan family lives on in Boston Blue, a spinoff for which the stars are hoping to recruit Selleck as a guest star.
Tom Selleck will appear in Crime and Justice With Tom Selleck, a new History Channel docuseries debuting in 2026.