Ted Danson wanted to ‘stop being a liar’ at the end of ‘Cheers’

Ted Danson is getting real about the state of his personal life toward the end of his run on “Cheers.”

During a recent episode of his podcast, “Where Everybody Knows Your Name,” the 78-year-old actor gave listeners an idea about what his life was like when “Cheers” came to an end in 1993.

“People say, ‘What was it like? What did you do when she was over?’ I said, ‘I had f–ked up my life so much that I didn’t even realize ‘Cheers’ was over,’” he said.

Elsewhere in the conversation, Danson admitted he “barely knew myself” and took a “postgrad grow-up class fast” the last year he was on the hit show.

He described driving to Long Beach to see his mentor, whom he called “amazing,” saying he gave him “a whole different kind of therapy spirituality kind of thing.”

“I wanted to stop being a liar,” he said. “I wanted to be emotionally mature. I wanted to change.”

The “Curb Your Enthusiasm” star previously spoke about the end of the series in an August 2025 episode of his podcast, reflecting on the state of his personal life at the time.

When asked by his guest, Charlie Day, if he was afraid of being typecast when the show ended, Danson said “the transition was easy because I blew my personal life up so badly,” and he didn’t realize the show had ended for a few months “because I was just dealing with myself and my personal stuff.”

Danson starred on the beloved sitcom as Sam Malone from 1982 to 1993, becoming one of the few cast members to appear in all 273 episodes of the show. 

“Cheers” came to an end after 11 seasons, when Danson expressed his desire to pursue other acting opportunities, with executives deciding the show should not go on without him.

“I was changing for the better and working really hard at that, so I thought, ‘Might as well jump completely off the cliff,’” he said. “And [there was] a little bit of … ‘If I don’t leave now, I may not know if I could do anything else, and I want to see if I can do any other stuff.’”

After his time on “Cheers,” Danson starred in “Becker,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation,” before introducing himself to a new audience in “The Good Place.”

He is currently starring in the hit Netflix show, “Man on the Inside,” playing a retired professor who finds himself working as an undercover spy in a nursing home.

“There’s something inherently funny about a 76-year-old man who is a [retired] college professor, his life shut down, his daughter’s worried. So, she says, ‘Get a project,’ and he happens to whimsically find a project where he becomes an undercover spy in a retirement home,” Danson told People in November 2024.