Donnie Wahlberg Reflects On Tearful Goodbye To “Blue Blood”
After 14 years of portraying Detective Danny Reagan on Blue Bloods, Donnie Wahlberg said goodbye to the beloved CBS series in an unforgettable way. But he didn’t expect that his farewell would come with 48 hours of nonstop tears.
The final day of filming in June was particularly emotional for Donnie, 55, who revealed to Variety that he “couldn’t turn off the tears for another probably two days” after the cameras stopped rolling.
What truly brought the waterworks? A surprise moment during the last Reagan family dinner scene — a staple of every Blue Bloods episode. Co-star Tom Selleck, who plays patriarch Frank Reagan, recited the poem Love Is Not All by Edna St. Vincent Millay, leaving the entire cast in awe.
Donnie admitted that he “didn’t make it through,” adding, “Literally, my life passed before my eyes.”
“I was listening to his voice mesmerize this room and thinking about what a magical journey, and what a gift that this boy, who didn’t know where his next meal was going to come from half the time, in this scrappy family, who grew up watching this man on TV, is sitting next to him, sharing this magical moment of his wisdom and grace,” he recounted further.
For Tom, 79, the poem was an unplanned but fitting tribute to the show’s legacy. While it is a poem Donnie always loved, he wasn’t surprised by the thoughtful gesture, noting that Tom had a way of delivering profound messages at just the right moments.
“He would quote different things to leave us with something to think about and focus on what’s important. When they said, ‘That’s a wrap,’ we all just waited,” he explained.
To mark the end of this chapter, Donnie shared a heartfelt Instagram post alongside a video of his final arrival on set. “Not sure I have the words to describe how I feel about today or the last 14 years on this special Blue Bloods journey,” he wrote, “but I do know how incredibly thankful I am for every moment of it.”
He called the series “one of the great blessings of my life.”
Donnie didn’t leave the set empty-handed. Among the keepsakes he took home were his two Danny Reagan costumes — a blue suit and his dress blues. But the real treasure was the Reagan family dining table, a symbol of the show’s heart and togetherness.
“I really had no intention of taking anything from the set until I learned that that table and chairs was just sitting in a warehouse somewhere,” he told PEOPLE. Now, he plans to share this piece of Blue Bloods history with fans by displaying it at various Wahlburgers locations. Afterward, he intends to raffle it off for charity, with proceeds benefiting the Detectives Endowment Association’s Widows and Children’s Fund.
