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While Richardson, at the time, wanted to make it seem as though she ran because she wasn’t being offered a good deal, no amount of money in the world, per her own words, would have made her film another season for ABC. Why? She’s finally opening up about the reason she left the hit show.
Patricia Richardson Didn’t Want To Return For Another Season of ‘Home Improvement’ For This Reason
When the time came for Richardson to exit the sitcom, she found a way to rub it in Disney’s face as well and requested for everything Disney had denied her through the years.
While there’s no amount of cash that would have saved ‘Home Improvement,’ she used money as a tactic to get out of having to be pressured to return for another season.
Even though she appeared alongside Tim Allen as family patriarch Jill Taylor on the hit sitcom, she still didn’t make as much as him or receive the offers he did.
“I told everybody, ‘There’s not enough money in the world to get me to do a ninth year,'” she recalled in a chat with Los Angeles Times, “This show is over. It needs to end.”
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Just months before the eight season was due to end, Richardson recalled receiving an offer of $1 million to return for a 25-episode ninth season, while Allen was offered twice the amount. She claimed that Allen was onboard with the deal, but she balked due to issues happening in her personal life then.
At the time, she had just come out of her divorce with Ray Baker and wanted to spend more time with her family. So to get out of being pressed to return, she devised a means to scare Disney away.
Apart from demanding as much as Allen was going to make, she also requested for an executive producer credit, which, according to her, was an offer Allen also received.
“I knew that Disney would in no way pay me that much,” she told the Times. “That was my way to say ‘no’ and was a little bit of a flip-off to Disney. I’d been there all this time, and they never even paid me a third of what Tim was making, and I was working my ass off. I was a big reason why women were watching.”
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Of course ABC rejected the proposal, leading to the end of the show in 1999.
Patricia Richardson – Recalls Being Mad At Tim Allen For Not Backing Her Up
At the time, Richardson recalled feeling betrayed that Allen wasn’t backing her up. “I was mad at Tim because he was leaving me alone being the only person saying no, which made me feel terrible and like the bad guy,” she recalled, “and he was upset with me for leaving.”
However, even though they’re no longer in contact despite reuniting in Allen’s ‘Last Man Standing’ series, Richardson revealed she’s “never stopped loving working with him.”
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