This teen heartthrob deemed as gay basically vanished after “Home Improvement” Well, after all these years he’s finally surfaced again, and users say he’s barely recognizable… “My goodness, he looks so different” See pic in comments

Switching his time between The Lion King and Randy Taylor on Home Improvement, Thomas shares that it was two years of being shuttled back on forth from one set to the next.

“I had to kind of go, ‘Oops! Time to be Randy’…’Oops! Time to be Simba,’” Thomas told People in 1994. “You have to prepare yourself to become this totally different person. I mean, we’re not lions, right?”

‘Full blown migraines’

In 1998, after leaving Home Improvement before its final season, Thomas started his retreat from the spotlight.

“I can’t tell you how many shows I’ve done with full-blown migraine headaches,” he says of his exhaustion. “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.”

Over the next few years, he had guest appearances on several shows, including, Ally McBeal, Smallville and 8 Simple Rules and loaned his voice to animated characters on The Wild Thornberrys and The Simpsons.

‘Blatant lie’

Before stepping away, he challenged himself with some edgier roles as a bisexual hustler in the indie film Speedway Junky (1999) and as a persecuted gay teen in Showtime’s Common Ground (2000).

Those roles, combined with maintaining his privacy, sparked rumors about his sexuality, which he gently denied while speaking with Jay Leno.

“Pretty much in Hollywood you’re not anyone until it’s rumored that you’re gay, so I wasn’t that upset about it,” Thomas, then 17, told the host. “Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but they’re rumors and you should always be kind of careful with that internet stuff.”

When Leno directly asked if he’s gay, Thomas replied, “No, no, no, no, I’m not. I’m not.”