Former Blue’s Clues star Steve Burns has opened up about the emotional toll of long-running internet rumours falsely claiming he had died, revealing how the speculation added to a deep personal struggle with depression.
The 51-year-old became a household name on the hit Nick Jr. show, where he played a cheerful, fictionalised version of himself alongside animated dog Blue.
He starred in over 100 episodes from the show’s launch in 1996 until his sudden departure in 2002, when he passed the torch to Donovan Patton, who played Steve’s brother, Joe.
Speaking on Rainn Wilson’s Soul Boom podcast, Steve reflected on how the bizarre urban myth that he’d died followed him for years and how it wore him down.
“When a rumour like that persists for three or four years, it stops being funny,” he said.
“When it persists for 10 years it feels like a cultural preference… When it persists for 15 or 20 years, you start to feel like you’re supposed to be.”
The timing made it even harder.
Steve explained he was already struggling with clinical depression when the rumours started spreading.
“What a lot of people don’t understand is that during the show, the internet was beginning to internet, and the world decided, or a large portion of the world decided, that I had died,” he said.
“[It’s] not what you want to hear when you’re severely clinically depressed.”
Eventually, he said, he began to internalise the myth.
Adding: “I didn’t recognise me. Everyone thought I was dead, and eventually I started playing along.”
He previously told Variety in 2022 that portraying a version of himself who was “utterly and completely full of joy and wonder at all times” became unsustainable.
As he neared his 30s, he admitted: “I didn’t want to be boyish anymore.”
In 2021, Steve returned to mark the show’s 25th anniversary in a heartfelt video posted to Nickelodeon’s social media accounts.
So about that time Steve went off to college… #BluesClues25 pic.twitter.com/O8NOM2eRjy
— Nick Jr. (@nickjr) September 7, 2021
In it, he addressed fans directly, referencing his abrupt exit years earlier.
“You remember how, when we were younger, we used to run around and hang out with Blue and find clues and talk to Mr. Salt and freak out about the mail and do all the fun stuff?” he said.
“And then one day, I was like, ‘Oh hey, guess what? Big news. I’m leaving! This is my brother Joe, he’s your new best friend.’ Then I got on a bus and I left, and we didn’t see each other for, like, a really long time. Can we just talk about that?”
He praised viewers for how far they’ve come since those days, saying: “Look at all you have done and all you have accomplished in all that time… It’s just so amazing, right?”
“I guess I just wanted to say that, after all these years, I never forgot you… ever. And I’m super glad we’re still friends. Thanks for listening. You look great, by the way. Whatever it is you’re doing, it’s working.”
Since then, Steve has written and directed episodes for the Blue’s Clues reboot and reunited with Patton in Blue’s Big City Adventure on Paramount+.
