If you were a young pre-teen girl in the 90s, you had a Teen Beat magazine poster of Jonathan Taylor Thomas on your wall.
The heartthrob of many girls finally resurfaced after not being seen for two years, only to leave most fans surprised.
The former “Home Improvement” actor, now 42-years old, sported a scruffy beard and longer hair while wearing a black beanie, glasses, and a light brown sweater paired with jeans.
In the photos, Thomas walked into a convenience store to refill his metal coffee mug. Then he was seen getting into his car parked nearby and driving off.
The last time JTT was photographed was more than two years ago when he was spotted going out for a walk with his two small dogs in Los Angeles.
Before that, he hadn’t been glimpsed in public for eight years.
Thomas became an instant teen pinup for his role as middle son Randy Taylor on the ABC sitcom “Home Improvement.” The show, starring Tim Allen, ran from 1991 to 1999.
Thomas cemented his 90s icon status by voicing young Simba in Disney’s 1994 animated feature film “The Lion King” and Pinocchio in the 1996 film “The Adventures of Pinocchio.”
He also starred opposite Tim Allen on the big screen in 1995’s “Man of the House.”
However, Thomas opted out of “Home Improvement” in 1998 to focus on academics.
“I’d been going nonstop since I was 8 years old. I wanted to go to school, to travel and have a bit of a break,” Thomas said in an interview back in 2013. “To sit in a big library amongst books and students, that was pretty cool. It was a novel experience for me.”
Thomas went on to study philosophy and history at Harvard University and graduated from Columbia University in 2010. He also attended St. Andrews University in Scotland.
In the 2000s, Thomas had made a few small appearances in shows like “8 Simple Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter” and “Veronica Mars”. Then in 2013, Thomas made a guest appearance on the second-season finale of “Last Man Standing”, reuniting with his former tv dad, Tim Allen.
Even though his appearances in the Hollywood circuit have dwindled, Thomas has no regrets about stepping away from the spotlight to pursue another career path.
“I never took the fame too seriously,” he said in the People interview. “It was a great period in my life, but it doesn’t define me. When I think back on the time, I look at it with a wink. I focus on the good moments I had, not that I was on a lot of magazine covers.”
