I'm not putting this in a spoiler because the backstory behind Steven Burns' leaving of Blues Clues is pretty well-documented...
The season 4 episode of
Blues Clues when Steve announced that he was leaving for college, and his younger brother Joe would watch Blue and the house in his place. Watching this episode for the first time
MADE MY 2-YEAR OLD SELF CRY.
When I got older, I found out that there were a lot of myths and theories as to why Steve actually left the show. Some of the most ridiculous myths I read included:
- He was recently diagnosed with cancer, and died a year later (he's still alive and well as of this post).
- He got charged with a DUI, and didn't want to tarnish his reputation as a children's actor because of it.
- He no longer wanted to be a children's actor.
Not only are all of these statements false, but Burns himself debunked the "dead" myth in a 2006 interview celebrating 10 years of
Blues Clues, and to this day still gets amused by how people still believe he's dead, even after guest starring multiple times in the
Blues Clues & You! continuation show and Paramount+ movie as Steve from the original show, who graduated college and is now a detective. The real reason why he left was because he was going bald, and felt very uncomfortable at the time having kids see it gradually happen episode-by-episode. As he is now visibly older in the reboot, he doesn't mind showing off his lack of hair these days to kids.
While it is true that he took a long break from being a children's actor and went into the music business, he never hated the job he became known for.
