But, like the Olsens, Jonathan had ambitions far beyond Hollywood, choosing to leave Home Improvement in 1998, with the sitcom ending the following year. ”I’d been going nonstop since I was 8 years old,” Jonathan explained to People in 2013 of his decision to exit the series. “I wanted to go to school, to travel and have a bit of a break.”
He’d go on to study at Harvard, Columbia and St. Andrew’s University in Scotland, admitting he enjoyed the anonymity of just being another college co-ed after spending years as the teen idol of the moment.
“To sit in a big library amongst books and students, that was pretty cool,” he told People. “It was a novel experience for me.”