After reuniting for the 30th anniversary of Everybody Loves Raymond, the cast made it clear they will never do a revival.
CBS aired the special on Monday, November 24, which star Ray Romano and series creator Phil Rosenthal hosted as they spoke to an audience in the reimagined Barone living room. Before they were joined by cast members Brad Garrett, Patricia Heaton, Monica Horan, Madylin Sweeten and Sullivan Sweeten, Romano, 67, and Rosenthal, 65, clarified that there were no other plans to return to the show.
“This is a reunion,” Romano, who played Ray, told the studio audience. “We are never going to do a reboot because we are missing three cast members — and family members — so we would never try to do it without them.”
Rosenthal agreed that they couldn’t revive the series. “It isn’t the same, and we have too much respect for the show and the beautiful audience to keep it the way it is,” he said.
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The CBS sitcom, which ran from 1996 to 2005, followed a successful sportswriter (Romano) who dealt with raising his family while his overbearing parents lived a few blocks away. After the series came to an end, Peter Boyle, who played Romano’s dad, died at the age of 71 in December 2006 following struggles with multiple myeloma and heart disease.
Doris Roberts, who played Romano’s mom, died in April 2016 of natural causes at age 90. One of Romano’s onscreen sons, Sawyer Sweeten, died by suicide in April 2015 at age 19.
Romano told Today in October 2020 that a revival “won’t happen” with the original cast. “We’re missing Peter, we’re missing Doris,” he said. “We’re missing the crux of the show.”
More recently, Romano told Yahoo! Entertainment that he didn’t like the idea of reviving Everybody Loves Raymond because he was “a little protective” of the series.
“Just because it was very personal to me,” he explained in December 2024. “I mean, it was based on my life, and I was such a part of the creative side of it and all.”
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Heaton, 67, echoed Romano’s statement earlier this year when asked about her hit sitcoms Everybody Loves Raymond and The Middle coming back.
“Why didn’t I ever get on a show that could be rebooted?” she told Yahoo! Entertainment in February. “Because it seems like everybody [else is].”
Heaton made it clear she had no desire to reboot either show, adding, “It was just sort of perfection — and you don’t wanna mess with perfection. You know, we’ve lost so many cast members, you couldn’t reboot it because it won’t be the same show.”
She continued: “It was so much fun because almost everybody [on the cast] was having kids. Ray had kids while we were on the show. And I did, Brad Garrett did, Monica Horan did, Philip Rosenthal [as well]. So it was a crazy busy place.”
Everybody Loves Raymond: 30th Anniversary Reunion is now streaming on Paramount+.
