Tim Allen has been known as one of the funniest stars in Hollywood for decades. Indeed, he’s been making fans laugh for years with his iconic sitcoms Home Improvement and Last Man Standing. These days, Allen is still going strong with his sitcom Shifting Gears, which airs on Wednesday nights on ABC.
While he’s enjoyed great Hollywood success that many can only dream of, Allen still wishes at times that his life had gone in a different direction at times. In a new interview, Allen is admitting that if he could do things all over again, he would have enlisted in the United States military in his youth.
Allen Wishes He’d ‘Gone Into The Military’
On Monday night, Allen appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! There, late night host Jimmy Kimmel brought up the fact that Allen has said in the past that he “can drive anything with a motor.” Allen replied by saying that while this is the case, his main interest has always been in military machinery.
“I love [nonprofit] Wounded Warriors, I love helping our vets, I love anything I can do,” said Allen, 72. “I should have gone into the military rather than prison, I had a choice and prison is the way I went.”
“It is the same sort of thing — food is kind of weird and you have to wear a uniform and all that,” he continued.
Thankfully, Allen has had the chance to live out his dream of operating military machinery on a few occasions over the years.
“The Marines down in Palmdale let me drive an Abrams tank, which was the best part of my life. I drove that, an F18 hornet, they let me do airliner rolls. And a sub. They let me take a sub down.”
Allen’s Time In Prison
Allen has long been open about the time that he spent in prison prior to his rise to fame in Hollywood.
In 1978, Allen was arrested at an airport in Michigan for having more than one pound of cocaine in his possession. He was then sentenced to two years in federal prison after he plead guilty to felony drug trafficking charges.
Allen has blamed his time as a criminal on substance abuse issues that he developed after his father was killed by a drunk driver when the future comedian was only 11 years-old.
“I just shut up and did what I was told,” Allen later said of his incarceration. “It was the first time ever I did what I was told and played the game. I learned literally how to live day by day. And I learned how to shut up. You definitely want to learn how to shut up.”
“I don’t say this lightly and anybody who has been incarcerated [knows], it’s surprising what the human being will get used to,” he added. “Eventually after eight months, I got used to it. There were okay times. Saturday we got better food. Eventually, I went from a holding cell arrangement to my own cell.”
Allen Turns His Life Around
Thankfully, upon his release from prison in 1981, Allen was able to turn his life around. He spent the rest of the 1980s building his career as a standup comedian. This led to him scoring his own sitcom Home Improvement, which premiered in 1991.
The rest, as they say, is history. Indeed, Allen remains one of the most beloved comedians in Hollywood to this day. As we previously reported, his latest sitcom Shifting Gears airs on Wednesday nights on ABC. Be sure to check it out if you haven’t already!
We applaud Allen for being so open about his past substance abuse issues. Indeed, he serves as an inspiration to millions, as he’s shown that it’s always possible for someone to turn their life around.
We also commend Allen for being one of the only celebrities in Hollywood these days who is unafraid to publicly praise the U.S. military. If only we had more celebrities out there like him.
God bless you, Tim Allen!