Zachery Ty Bryan, the actor who played Brad Taylor, the oldest son on the long-running TV sitcom “Home Improvement,” has been arrested in Oregon and faces charges of strangulation and assault.
The Eugene Police Department said officers were dispatched to a North Eugene apartment Friday night after a reported physical dispute. They found Bryan, 39, sitting outside and his girlfriend, 27, at a neighboring apartment.
Bryan reportedly assaulted the victim, impeded her breathing, and took her phone away when she tried to call 911, police said. The victim declined medical assistance.
He was booked into Lane County jail after 1 a.m. Saturday.
A message left with a possible agent for Bryan was not immediately returned. It wasn’t immediately known if he had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf.
Bryan played Tim Allen’s son from 1991 to 1999 on the hit ABC series. Since then, he’s had guest roles on “Burn Notice” and the NBC “Knight Rider” reboot, appeared in “The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift” and produced the Maggie Gyllenhaal movie “The Kindergarten Teacher.”
He has four children with Carly Matros, whom he married in 2007: twins Taylor and Gemma, Jordana and Pierce.
The actor is an outspoken conservative in Hollywood who has chided stars for their “elitist” politics.
“It was nice to see so many people posting such touching tributes to Ruth Bader Ginsburg for leading the way for a woman to serve on the SCOTUS,” he tweeted in September. “How many of those same people will be trashing, degrading, spitting all over Amy Coney Barrett today? I hope I’m wrong …”
“There’s a lot more conservatives in Hollywood than anyone thinks,” he told Fox News in 2019. “Basically, if they’re very outspoken, they are obviously on the left. And when they don’t say anything or stay a little more apolitical, there’s probably a good chance that they might be on the right.
“I get messages all the time from my Hollywood friends saying, ‘Keep up the good fight,’ ” he said. “If (Democrats are) going to be a party of tolerance and acceptance, then they should be very accepting to other political views within our business.”
Contributing: The Associated Press and Kim Willis, USA TODAY