Home Improvement Star Jonathan Taylor Thomas Arrested

Jonathan Taylor Thomas was detained early Monday in Westlake Village, California, after a traffic stop that began as a DUI investigation of another person in the car. The “Home Improvement” actor, 45, was not driving.

Sheriff’s officials told PEOPLE that Thomas got out of the vehicle during the stop. Deputies ordered him back inside. They said he refused, interfered with the investigation, and was then arrested for obstruction and for being drunk in public.

Jail records show he was taken to the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station at 12:32 a.m. on September 21 and booked at 1:50 a.m. He was released more than 34 hours later. The driver’s name and whether that person was also held have not been released.

The district attorney has not filed charges. Prosecutors can still review the file and file within the statute of limitations.

Thomas became famous in the 1990s as Randy Taylor, the middle son on ABC’s “Home Improvement,” and as the voice of young Simba in “The Lion King.” He left the sitcom before its final season to go to school and largely stepped out of public view in the early 2000s.

“I’d been going nonstop since I was 8 years old,” he told PEOPLE in 2013. “I wanted to go to school, to travel and have a bit of a break.” He later said he never treated the magazine-cover years as a permanent identity.

He made a few guest appearances on Tim Allen’s later series “Last Man Standing” between 2013 and 2015. In July, Patricia Richardson posted a rare photo with Thomas and Taran Noah Smith, calling them “My other boys.” Before that reunion, he had last been photographed publicly in 2021 walking his dogs.

A follow-up report from law enforcement, cited in later PEOPLE coverage, said he “kicked a deputy in the stomach” before the public-intoxication booking. That allegation has not produced a charged case in the district attorney’s public file.

Thomas’s team has not issued a detailed public statement. For an actor who spent two decades avoiding cameras, the booking sheet is the most visible record of his week.