Blue’s Clues’ Steve Burns Particulars Battling Extreme Despair Whereas Capturing Youngsters Present

In a wide-ranging interview with Selection, the 49-year-old revealed he battled with extreme medical despair through the six years he starred as Steve within the Nickelodeon kids’s present, alluding that the struggles contributed to his abrupt exit from “Blue’s Clues” in 2002.

“I did not realize it but, however I used to be the happiest depressed individual in North America. I used to be fighting extreme medical despair the entire time I used to be on that present,” Burns started. “It was my job to be completely and utterly stuffed with pleasure and marvel always, and that turned inconceivable. I used to be at all times in a position to dig and discover one thing that felt genuine to me that was ok to be on the present, however after years and years of going to the properly with out replenishing it, there was a value.”

“My technique had been: ‘Hey, you bought an important factor going, so simply combat it!’ Seems, you do not combat despair; you accumulate it,” he added.

One of the vital standard and influential preschool tv sequence of all time, Steve and Blue have been launched to the world in 1996. Then, in 2002, Burns abruptly introduced that he can be leaving the present, handing the reins of the sequence (in addition to his home, all of its anthropomorphic contents and even his canine, Blue) to his brother Joe, performed by Donovan Patton.

On the time, Burns mentioned his exit was as a result of Steve was heading off to varsity. Nonetheless, he defined to Selection that different causes have been behind his departure, together with shedding his hair and the truth that he “wasn’t going to be boyish anymore.” And likewise, as beforehand talked about, his psychological well being.

“After I left ‘Blue’s Clues,’ there was a protracted interval of therapeutic,” he recalled. “It wasn’t till the demise of my father that I actually began to take issues severely, and my life turned a lot extra manageable.”

Wanting again, Burns mentioned he wished he sought assist for his despair throughout his time on the sequence, however he admitted that he would not have modified his determination to depart.

“However I might have been in a position to throw my arms across the position, and loosen up into it a bit of extra,” he advised Selection. “As a result of now, after I look again, all I see is what an inconceivable reward that was.”

Within the years following his exit, many rumors swirled about Burns, most notably that he had died. Regardless of Burns popping up for some public appearances, the demise hoax by no means totally disappeared.

“I used to be below the working assumption that almost all of y’all thought I used to be useless,” Burns mentioned. “That rumor was so persistent and so indelible that I assumed it was a cultural choice. I ultimately simply took the trace. I stored my head down and left public life.”

Nonetheless, final yr, Burns appeared in a heartwarming video posted to Nick Jr’s Twitter announcement to have a good time the twenty fifth anniversary of the unique “Blue’s Clues” (September 8, 1996). He shared a message not for the present’s present viewers, however for his “buddies,” who helped him clear up the clues and determine what Blue wished 25 years in the past.

The video hit house for thousands and thousands of nostalgic followers, turning many right into a puddle of tears.

“You bear in mind how once we have been youthful, we used to run round and hang around with Blue … after which I left and we did not see one another for a very very long time? Can we simply speak about that? As a result of I understand that was form of abrupt,” Burns mentioned within the September 2021 clip, which has 1.9 million likes. “I simply wished to say, I by no means forgot you. Ever.”

Reflecting on how folks’s emotional response to the clip, Burns advised Selection, “Everybody desires to really feel seen and heard. I believe it punched via as a result of it was about respectful, energetic listening — a extra direct dialog than you’re used to seeing in your display screen.”

“It’s extremely on model for me to not have the solutions. Steve was the man who wanted you. He doesn’t appear as if a job mannequin. He had problem differentiating between shapes and colours,” he continued with amusing, earlier than including, “However Steve turned my position mannequin. As a result of he was not afraid to ask for assist.”

Burns has been concerned within the “Blue’s Clues” revival sequence, “Blue’s Clues & You!,” which premiered in 2019, even visitor staring within the reboot. He additionally shares the display screen with host Josh Dela Cruz (aka Steve and Joe’s cousin) and Patton (aka Joe) within the Parmount+ movie, “Blue’s Massive Metropolis Journey,” which is on the market to stream now on Paramount+.