Steve Burns, from the popular ’90s children’s show “Blue Clues,” is revealing a surprising detail about his time sitting in the infamous Thinking Chair.
While appearing on the podcast Soul Boom, hosted by actor Rainn Wilson, Burns shared candid reflections on his time with the beloved series, which he hosted from 1996 to 2001.
“I got ‘Blue’s Clues’ early, but every waiter I ever knew made more money than I did for the first many seasons of that show,” he revealed.
Burns went on to call the show his “side hustle” based on the modest pay, and credited voiceover work as his main source of income.
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“My real gig was, I was a voiceover guy. I fell into that early,” Burns said.
He explained commercial voiceovers “would kind of sustain him,” though he confessed those early years in New York City were “grim.”
As he tells it, he ended up on “Blue’s Clues” by accident just after finishing theater school.
“I thought it was a voice thing, I went to the audition,” Burns said. “And when I got there, there was a camera in the room. And I thought, ‘Oh, shit. I better do something.’ And I looked at the script, and, you know, I figured … I’m gonna act the shit out of this.”
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Burns also opened up about how rumors of his death impacted his mental health.
“I was in kind of the throes of this depression after I left the show,” he explained. “But what a lot of people don’t understand is that, that during the show, the internet was beginning to internet, and the world decided, or a large portion of the world decided, that I had died.”
The suicide rumors were “not what you want to hear when you’re severely clinically depressed,” he said.
If you or someone you know needs help, call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org for mental health support. Additionally, you can find local mental health and crisis resources at dontcallthepolice.com. Outside of the U.S., please visit the International Association for Suicide Prevention.
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