Tom Selleck says the Blue Bloods pay cut was part of a wider effort by the cast to save the long-running police drama. Before CBS ended the series with its 14th season, he and his costars had already accepted 25 percent less money and were willing to make other concessions to continue.
Speaking during a live taping of Ted Danson’s Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast, published July 28, Selleck said the decision remained frustrating because the cast was united and the show was still performing strongly.
Why the cast accepted lower salaries
“The real truth to that is in the last year of Blue Bloods, at our last family dinner, everybody wanted to come back,” Selleck said. “We’d already taken a 25 percent cut in salary.”
The ensemble included Donnie Wahlberg, Bridget Moynahan and Len Cariou, many of whom had worked together since the series premiered in 2010. Selleck said they agreed to “all sorts of things to keep the show going,” reflecting how closely the cast had come to identify with a production they regarded as a “labor of love.”
“Nobody wanted to leave. Everybody was gonna stay on,” the former Magnum P.I. star said. “That’s hard to get. It may be some kind of record to have the same cast intact for that length of time.”
