So, this is nothing to sing about. The well-known “Blue’s Clues” star, Steve Burns, dropped a bombshell about his time on the beloved children’s show. During an episode of Rainn Wilson’s “Soul Boom” podcast, Burns confessed that waiters were raking in more cash than he was while hosting the Nickelodeon hit. Can you believe it?
“I got ‘Blue’s Clues’ early on, but let me tell you, every waiter I knew was making more money than I was for the first few seasons of that show,” the 51-year-old actor spilled. “But hey, I lucked out because ‘Blue’s Clues’ was my side gig for a long time.”
Steve Burns popped up on Rainn Wilson’s “Soul Boom” podcast on Thursday, May 1. The man was the face of “Blue’s Clues” from 1996 to 2002.
“My real job was doing voiceovers,” he added. “I stumbled into that world early on.”
Burns kick-started his acting career in the Big Apple in the early ’90s. He shared with Wilson that he initially dreamed of being either an “unknown actor who did Off-Broadway stuff” or “Al Pacino,” but fate had other plans, and he landed the hosting gig on “Blue’s Clues” in 1996.
But get this, the Nickelodeon gig of a lifetime happened “totally by accident” because he thought he was just auditioning for another voiceover role.
“One day, I had an audition for what I thought was going to be the voice of a cartoon on a children’s TV show. And let me tell you, if I knew it was going to be ‘the guy on the show,’ on camera, I would’ve never shown up,” he explained. “Not because I was a pretentious young man at the time – well, that was part of it – but also because children’s TV was never on my radar.”
Burns continued, “I thought it was just a voice thing. I walked into the audition, and boom, there was a camera in the room. And I thought, ‘Oh, darn. I better do something.’ So, I glanced at the script, and you know, I thought … I’m gonna act my heart out.”
The “Blue’s Clues” star stuck around on the popular kids’ show until 2002 when he decided to step away to focus on his mental health. However, rumors quickly spread that he had passed away.
It wasn’t until 20 years later, in 2022, that Burns revealed he had been diagnosed with clinical depression shortly before leaving the series.
“People would come up to me and say, ‘Oh, I thought you were dead. Didn’t you die?’ And when it goes on for 10 years, it starts to feel like a cultural thing, and you begin to feel like you’re supposed to be,” he shared with Wilson.
“I was deep in the throes of this depression after leaving the show,” Burns continued. “But what most folks don’t get is that during the show, the internet was starting to take off, and the world decided, or a big chunk of it, that I was no longer with us.”
Despite remaining in NYC after his departure from “Blue’s Clues,” Burns admitted that there was a period of about 10 years where he did absolutely nothing.
“I built a house in Brooklyn and barely left it. I call it ‘the gray’ phase of my life,” he chuckled. “It was a good decade where I did nothing but sip on a couple of bottles of wine every night solo, binge ‘MythBusters,’ and chow down on Pad Thai.”
“I packed on like 50 pounds. I was a whole different person, unrecognizable. I didn’t even recognize myself. And everyone thought I had kicked the bucket,” Burns shared. “And eventually, I started playing along. You know, that was the move. Just go with the flow. Maybe I am.”
Steve Burns managed to turn things around, and he has since returned to Nickelodeon to write for and even make a cameo in the “Blue’s Clues” revival, “Blue’s Clues & You!”
He even hopped on TikTok in March 2024 to “check in” on the audience that grew up watching him more than 20 years ago.
“Hey, I’m checking in,” he said in the heartfelt clip at the time. “What’s going on?”
