Throughout the 1980s, one of the biggest sitcoms on television was “Family Ties.” And with the show’s success, the young actors in the cast got just as big. One of these stars was Tina Yothers, who played Jennifer Keaton. Jennifer was the third child of the central Keaton family, with parents Elyse and Steven Keaton. With the long-running sitcom following Jennifer from her elementary school days to high school, viewers at home grew quite familiar with the actor. And after the show ended, there were a lot of expectations for Yothers’ future career.
But unlike some of her “Family Ties” co-stars who went on to be huge stars, like Michael J. Fox and Courteney Cox, Yothers went a different route. She initially continued acting, with roles in TV movies like “Laker Girls” and “A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case of the Jealous Jokester,” but after 2000, she dropped completely off the radar, at least from acting. Instead, she pivoted to music. Yothers explored a solo music career during her time on “Family Ties,” but in the late 1990s, she formed a band called Jaded with her brother, Cory Yothers. They released an album called “Confessions” in 2000, and they reportedly performed here and there in the 2000s.
At the same time, Yothers’ personal life flourished. She got married to husband Robert Kaiser in 2002, and they have two children together, a daughter and a son. Yothers is also stepmother to Kaiser’s two children from a previous relationship. With all this going on, she has certainly been busy in the years since “Family Ties” ended. And while she hasn’t acted since 2000, she hasn’t completely been away from the television world.
Tina Yothers appeared on quite a few reality TV shows over the years
After Tina Yothers stepped away from acting, she didn’t say goodbye to Hollywood. Instead, she switched over to reality television, appearing on quite a few programs over the years. In 2001, Yothers was featured in one episode of both “The Test” and “Weakest Link.” The first was a reality talk show with celebrities and audiences debating moral questions, with one example being, “Would you lie to keep your kid out of jail?” As for “Weakest Link,” it was a trivia team show, with members voted out after each round.
Years later, Yothers went for a different kind of reality TV show, participating in “Celebrity Fit Club” between 2006 and 2008. She clearly wasn’t afraid to try different things over time, as next came “Celebrity Wife Swap’ in 2012, and then TLC’s “What Not to Wear” the next year. Hosts Stacy London and Clinton Kelly helped her move on from her dark colors and baggy clothes and into something new and fitting. She said during the episode, “I spent my life, my childhood on television with the stylist and the wardrobe department. I just never grabbed on to any particular look” (via HuffPost). Thankfully, London and Kelly gave her a little help with that, and she seemed happy with the final product.
Since “What Not to Wear,” Yothers has generally stayed away from major appearances, but she has shown up on talk shows here and there, like “Today” and “Entertainment Tonight.” In 2022, she appeared on “Daily Beast Live” to reminisce about the ’80s, and at the end of the conversation, she revealed that she was working on a book. As of this writing, there have been no updates, but it’s possibly still a work in progress.
