Danny Pintauro Says He Has ‘Mixed Feelings’ About “Who’s the Boss? ”34 Years After Show Ended

Pintauro now balances gig work while reestablishing his acting career after a decade-long break

NEED TO KNOW

• Danny Pintauro is reflecting on his time as Jonathan on Who’s the Boss? and sharing mixed feelings about the role
• Pintauro left acting to attend Stanford and later came out publicly after being approached by a tabloid
• He now balances gig work, including as an Amazon driver, while reestablishing his acting career after a decade-long break

Former child star Danny Pintauro is opening up about how he feels about Who’s the Boss? decades after the show went off the air.

Pintauro, 50, spoke to Entertainment Tonight in a recent interview, saying, “When I think back about Jonathan, I have mixed feelings.”

The show centered on a single dad and former pro baseball player (Tony Danza) who takes a job as a live-in housekeeper for a powerful ad executive named Angela (Judith Light). Pintauro played Jonathan, Angela’s young son.

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Shortly after Who’s the Boss ended, Pintauro left the television industry to attend Stanford; he graduated in 1998. Speaking to ET, Pintauro also opened up about being approached by a tabloid that planned to run a story outing him while he was attending the school.

“I was already sort of living openly at Stanford and I got a call from the Inquirer saying, ‘We’re doing this story,’ “ he said, recounting that he felt like, “I mean, my life is over as we know it.”

Speaking to ET, Pintauro said his “mixed feelings” over rewatching the show stem from knowing he was keeping his sexuality a secret.

“Overall, obviously, the experience was amazing,” he said. “I mean, it’s not about the experience of being on set — that was perfect. Like, it couldn’t have been any better. The family, right? The sort of camaraderie.”

He continued: “I think it’s because, the person that I’m watching was going through a lot at the time, secretly. You know, I was young, I was trying to figure out and navigate these thoughts about my sexuality. At that time, the narrative around being gay was very negative. So, when I watch the clip, I see the queer. It’s that I know that there’s more going on.”

Pintauro ultimately spoke to the outlet to get ahead of the story and has shared in earlier interviews that going public ultimately lead to more joy in his life.

He wed husband Wil Tabares ​in 2014, and, in 2022, he returned to acting in Lifetime’s A Country Christmas Harmony.

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Pintauro recently shared that he works as an Amazon driver outside his acting career, discussing his gig career in a recent appearance on Pod Meets World.

“When I posted the picture for [Amazon] Flex, I really didn’t, it did not cross my mind because everybody knows that I’m working,” he explained on the pod. “It’s one of the five different gig jobs that I’m doing right now. We’re gig actors. Acting is one of the six gigs.”

In a statement to PEOPLE, Pintauro expanded on his motivation for working as an Amazon driver. “Returning to acting after a ten-year break is an uphill battle. I’m reintroducing myself as an adult actor in an industry that looks very different than it once did. Since 2021 alone, television production in Los Angeles has dropped dramatically, and even pilot season is a fraction of what it used to be,” he pointed out.

Pintauro also addressed those who ask about how much money he made from Who’s the Boss? and its residuals. “People overestimate what residuals from a sitcom in the ‘80s and ‘90s look like,” he continued. “I invested a good portion of that money, but I also used a lot of it to pay for Stanford and to get through my early twenties, so it’s not like there’s just been endless money sitting there.”