Tom Selleck is once again voicing his frustrations over the cancellation of Blue Bloods after 14 seasons, saying the cast and crew did everything they could to keep the show going, including taking a significant pay cut.
The hit police procedural, led by Selleck, 81, as Frank Reagan, New York Police Commissioner and patriarch of a multigenerational family of police officers, officially ended in December 2024.
“Blue Bloods was a labor of love… I think for everybody,” the Magnum, P.I. star said on a recent episode of Ted Danson’s Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast.
“The real truth to that is in the last year of [the series], at our last family dinner, everybody wanted to come back. We’d already taken a 25 percent cut in salary,” Selleck admitted, adding that they had “done all sorts of things to keep the show going.”
Still, CBS chose to axe the show, announcing in 2023 that the 14th season would be its last.
Touting the show’s viewership success, Selleck claimed that “out of the top 100 shows on broadcast television, Blue Bloods was number six in our fifteenth year.”
“Nobody wanted to leave. Everybody was gonna stay on,” he said. “That’s hard to get. It may be some kind of record to have the same cast intact for that length of time.”
Blue Bloods also starred Donnie Wahlberg, Bridget Moynahan, Will Estes and Len Cariou. Following the series finale, the cast bid an emotional farewell to the long-running drama.
Wahlberg, who played Detective Daniel “Danny” Reagan, wrote on X at the time: “Thank you for all the love – through all the years! All 14 of them to be exact. We are on to whatever comes next, and whatever that is, we do it together, again! As always! Thank you Blockheads!”
ADA Erin Reagan actor Moynahan later added: “Wish I could post a photo of every one of the cast and crew who has helped make @BlueBloods_CBS what it is. It took a village and I love that village! See y’all at 11pm with a few tears in our eyes!”
Selleck has previously expressed his disappointment over the show’s cancellation. “I’m kind of frustrated. During those last eight shows, I haven’t wanted to talk about an ending for Blue Bloods but about it still being wildly successful,” he told TV Insider in 2024.
“I’m not going to turn into a bitter old guy saying, ‘Get off my lawn!’” he said. “I don’t believe in holding grudges, but 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.”
Explaining the decision to cancel Blue Bloods once and for all, CBS Entertainment President Amy Reisenbach previously insisted that the network “loves” the cast’s “passion for the show,” but “all shows have to come to an end. It’s important to us to refresh the schedule.”
“We really want to thank the cast and crew, everyone involved in the show,” she continued. “We absolutely will miss the family dinners. It is important to give the show the send off it deserves.”
Blue Bloods debuted in 2010, with its season 14 renewal making it one of the network’s longest-running procedurals.
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