Steve Burns Compares His Blue’s Clues Earnings to Waitressing Income

Former Blue’s Clues star Steve Burns stated that he earned very little while hosting the iconic Nickelodeon show.

“I got Blue’s Clues early [in my career], but every waiter I ever knew made more money than I did for the first many seasons of that show,” Burns, 51, shared on the Thursday, May 1, episode of the “Soul Boom” podcast. “But I was really fortunate because Blue’s Clues was my side hustle forever. My primary job was as a voiceover actor, which I stumbled into early on.”

Reflecting on the early stages of his career in New York City during the early 1990s, Burns aspired to be “an unknown actor involved in Off-Broadway productions or to be Al Pacino.” Reality struck when he found his significant opportunity with Nickelodeon, supported by commercial voiceover work, which he described as “grim.”

Burns recounted that he got the life-changing Nickelodeon role “entirely by accident” after misunderstanding an initial audition. At the time, he focused only on “serious actor auditions” for shows like Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order.

The actor explained, “One day I had an audition for what I believed was the voice of a cartoon on a children’s show. Had I known it was for ‘the guy on the show’ in front of the camera, I wouldn’t have shown up. Not only because I was a bit pretentious back then — that was part of it — but also because children’s television never crossed my mind.”

“I thought it was about voice acting. When I arrived, I saw a camera in the room and thought, ‘Oh, s***. I better do something.’ Yeah. So, I glanced at the script and thought, ‘I’m gonna act the s*** out of this.’”

Burns remembered how he impressed the Blue’s Clues producers by positioning himself close to the camera to foster a connection with the audience. Ultimately, he secured the Blue’s Clues role and portrayed a fictionalized version of himself for six years, earning a Daytime Emmy Award nomination in 2001.

After his tenure with Blue’s Clues, Burns redirected his focus towards voice-over work for brands such as Snickers, KFC, and McDonald’s. During the early 2000s, a peculiar internet subculture emerged around his absence from the public eye, including death hoaxes claiming he had died from a drug overdose or in an accident. In reality, Burns withdrew from the spotlight to prioritize his mental health.

In 2022, the actor and TV host revealed he had been diagnosed with clinical depression before leaving Blue’s Clues. During the “Soul Boom” podcast, Burns explained how he felt like his “continued existence was an inconvenient truth” in light of the death hoaxes surrounding him.

“I would often hear from people, ‘Oh, I thought you were dead. Didn’t you die?’ And when it lasts for a decade, it feels like a cultural preference… you start to feel like you’re meant to be [dead],” he recalled.

Burns continued, “I was deeply entrenched in depression after exiting the show. Yet, many don’t realize that while the show aired, the internet was starting to gain traction, and a significant portion of the world believed I had died.”

He mentioned that the death hoaxes were particularly painful since some family members genuinely thought he had passed away.

“I built a house in Brooklyn and pretty much stayed there. I refer to it as ‘the gray’ of my life,” Burns said. “It was about a decade where I did nothing but drink a couple of bottles of wine each night alone, binge-watch MythBusters, and eat Pad Thai.”

Burns added, “I gained around 50 pounds. I was unrecognizable to myself. Everyone thought I was dead. Eventually, I even started to play along. You know, that became the strategy. Just … maybe I am [dead].”

Later in the discussion, Burns expressed that he began to turn his life around after starting therapy for his depression. He has since made a television comeback by writing several episodes for Nickelodeon’s revival of Blue’s Clues (now retitled Blue’s Clues & You!), and also returning to on-camera duties alongside new host Josh Dela Cruz.

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