Why is len cariou leaving blue bloods

Is Len Cariou Leaving 'Blue Bloods'? Fans Continue to Worry About His Potential Exit

Six decades after Canadian actor Len Cariou started his acting career, he’s still booked and busy. He made his debut as Henry Reagan on the CBS series Blue Bloodsin 2010. Since then, fans have grown to love the retired police commissioner. However, viewers often worry that the tough-but-fair family patriarch’s story could soon be coming to an end.

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In Season 12 of Blue Bloods, the Reagan family was forced to face the reality of Henry’s rapidly declining health. But is Len leaving Blue Bloods? Keep reading for details on the actor’s rumored exit.

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Len Cariou stars as Henry Reagan on ‘Blue Bloods.’

Len has portrayed Henry onscreen for more than a decade now. In an interview withLooper, he opened up about how he got the role — and according to him, he was floored by the opportunity to play Tom Selleck’s dad.

“When the proposition came to me, my wife got the appointment on the internet from my agent and said, ‘This show, you’re going to get this role playing Tom Selleck’s father and it’ll run for 10 years.’ I laughed at her,” he shared.

“In the first place, Tom and I... Who’s going to buy me being Tom Selleck’s father?" the actor, who's currently 83, continued. "We’re only about a generation apart. Lo and behold, [about] 13 years later...”

(Note: Tom Selleck is only five years younger than Len.)

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But is Len Cariou leaving ‘Blue Bloods’?

Leading up to the end of Season 12 of Blue Bloods, we learned that Henry was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The revelation led many fans to believe that Len could be preparing to leave the show. However, despite Henry's diagnosis, showrunners gave us no reason to believe that he was going to die as a result of his health scare — so much so, that the doctor assured Frank that Henry

Blue Bloods' Cast Are As Sad About Its Cancelation As You Are: What Selleck, Wahlberg & More Said About Its Ending

Blue Bloods' cast and crew are grieving the end of the popular procedural, and main cast members such as Tom Selleck and Donnie Wahlberg have spoken up about it. The crime drama about a family of copscontinued to be popular throughout its fourteenth and final season. Nevertheless, CBS stuck to its disappointing decision to cancel Blue Bloods, and the series aired its final episode on December 13, 2024. The Blue Bloods series finale featured many aspects of the show that made it popular.

The final story revolved around every Reagan working on arresting gang members who were causing mayhem and shooting at public servants in an effort to force the release of incarcerated gang associates. In the final moments, the Reagans gathered for one last family dinner in Blue Bloods, where it was revealed that Eddie (Vanessa Ray) was pregnant. The finale thus did not wrap up every storyline, leaving things open for a reunion, spinoff, or reprieve. Additionally, most of the cast and crew continue to be vocal about their desire to return to producing Blue Bloods.

Donnie Wahlberg

The Danny Reagan Actor Is Sorry They Couldn't Save Blue Bloods

Donnie Wahlberg is known both on and off the Blue Bloods set for his positive attitude, which makes his comments about Blue Bloods ending even more heartbreaking. Throughout season 14, Wahlberg held out hope that CBS would change its mind, continually stating that he hoped to be able to do Blue Bloods season 15 despite CBS' insistence on cancelation. Wahlberg also co-signed a fan-led movement to save Blue Bloods and hoped to have good news.

Sadly, all efforts to save Blue Bloods failed to move the needle with CBS. After the cancelation was confirmed, Wahlberg said that he had held out hope of a reprieve for Blue Bloods until the finale and that reality was hitting hard. Most importantly, he

After a career spanning

Tom Selleck isn’t the onlyBlue Bloods cast member who has voiced disappointment that the show is ending after 14 seasons. Len Cariou, who portrays Henry Reagan in the series, reacted to the program’s cancellation after 10 years on-air.

“Yeah, it’s too bad. Doesn’t make any sense,” he told TV Insider in an interview published on November 8. “We’re still, I think, the best-watched show on Friday nights, even though we’re canceled.”

Blue Bloods has become a Friday night staple in millions of homes across the U.S. for folks who have loved being part of the Reagan family dinners each week. For many, watching the final episodes air has been rather emotional.

“And I think when they launched us there Friday nights, think about 14, 15 years ago — we weren’t really thrilled with Friday night at 10,” he told the outlet. “Friday has not been — was at least at that point not really a very popular time, the first show on the weekends, and we thought, well, it’s not a very good time slot.”

Henry, 85, said that Tom, 79, is a huge part of the reason why the show was able to succeed in that time slot. The latter TV star first earned notoriety on CBS with Magnum, P.I. from 1980 to 1988.

“But because of Tom, and I think he has such a great following on CBS, that once they saw the show, they said, ‘No, it doesn’t matter. It’s really good. So they’ll make it work on Fridays,’” Henry recalled. “And they thought about moving us to another night way back then, and we said, I think Mr. Goldberg said, ‘No, we’ll own Friday nights.’ And sure enough, we did.”

But sadly, CBS maintains that all good things must come to an end. The series began airing the final episodes of season 14 in October.

“We really want to thank the cast and crew, everyone involved in the show,” CBS Entertainment President Amy Reisenbach told reporters in May. “We absolutely will miss the family dinners. It is important to give show the sendoff it deserves.”

“We love this cast, we love their pas

‘Blue Bloods’: Len Cariou on Henry’s Fun Surprising Erin, Show Ending & More

[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Blue Bloods Season 14 Episode 13 “Bad to Worse.”]

Henry (Len Cariou) surprises Erin (Bridget Moynahan) twice in the latest Blue Bloods episode.

First, she’s shocked to hear that he’s going to testify for the defense about the NYPD’s evolution on its chokehold policy during her case against a former cop who used one on a neighbor over a fence dispute. When she confronts him, he just says the case is important needs expert testimony and he knows how to judge people. But then in court, on the stand, he speaks about how the defendant is one of those cops who’s the reason why chokeholds got banned. He didn’t clue Erin in because he didn’t want to ruin the surprise.

Below, Cariou talks about the fun of that, his final days on set, and the show ending.

Watching the scene in the courtroom, it seemed almost like Henry was having fun on the stand, being able to surprise Erin.

Len Cariou: Yeah, he was. Being able to, in a sense, dupe her was great fun for Henry.

CBS

I also liked the last scene with you and Bridget in Erin’s office and how Henry’s like, all right, where’s the scotch? We got quite a bit of you two together in this episode.

I think the writers [wanted] to have some screen time with the two of them because they had had such a great history over the run of the show, and they were such great favorites, she being the only female in the group, and he’d always be saying to her, my favorite granddaughter, and she’d always say, “You mean your only granddaughter, smartass.” [Laughs]

What was your last day on set like?

I was thinking about that just a few minutes ago. It was pretty bittersweet. The last scene, of course, was at a funeral, and so we weren’t even in the house the day that we wrapped it u