How Alyssa Milano helped ‘Who’s the Boss?’ star Danny Pintauro as he battled HIV and heroin
Although they developed a close bond while working on the set of 'Who's the Boss?' in the 1980s, Alyssa Milano was one of the actresses Danny Pintauro admitted he had problems with. Looking back on his time in the popular sitcom, which aired from 1984 to 1992, Pintauro, who played Jonathan Bower, admitted that he occasionally had "iffy moments" with Samantha Micelli, played by Milano.
However, he attributed his disagreement with Milano to their sibling relationship, "It couldn't have been a better experience. We really did come together as a family," the 46-year-old said on David Yontef's Behind the Velvet Rope podcast. "We did Christmas gifts. I got Judith Light 'Merry Christmas, Mom' stuff,and I got Katherine Helmond grandma stuff," he recalled. "I loved being there, but Alyssa and I had iffy moments - that was really because she was a teenager and I was the younger brother. "She was like, 'Get out of here!' and slammed the door in my face," he continued. "There was no malice to it - just older sister/younger brother things."
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Pintauro acknowledged that, out of the entire ensemble, Milano, 50, was the one with whom he maintained contact the least after the show ended because they "never developed that sort of bond." But after he came out as HIV positive, their relationship changed. “She was totally caught off guard,” he said, noting that she had a “bit of a teary moment” after the news emerged. “Right after that episode, I got a text from her, and our relationship developed a lot more,” he told Yontef. After a 30-year hiatus, Pintauro made his acting comeback in the Lifetime holiday film ‘A Country Christmas Harmony.’ He resisted returning to the game for a long time. "I had a lot of trauma from my time after Who's the Boss?" He developed a heroin addiction, received an HIV diagnosis, experienced financial hardship and endured numerous career rejections. "Maybe I was a child actor, and that's all I was supposed to be," he recalled thinking.
However, he now has the perspective of someone who has been through the worst and knows better times are approaching. There are "possibilities out there", according to Pintauro. He had every reason to believe. Pintauro quit his job as a veterinarian technician, called his former manager, secured his first audition and landed a role in ‘A Country Christmas Harmony’ playing the best friend and assistant to a country singer (Brooke Elliott) trying to revive her flagging career after telling his husband Wil Tabares, 54, about his desire to get back into Hollywood. He remarked on receiving the very first job he applied for with the expression: "I couldn't believe it."