The Rookie’s Eric Winter Drops the F-Bomb in Season 7 Bloopers: Watch

Eric Winter’s Tim Bradford is often the strong, stern type on The Rookie — but the actor himself has a lot of laughs on set.

Winter, 49, fails to keep it together in Us Weekly’s exclusive first look at the cast’s funniest bloopers during season 7, especially while riding in a cop car with Melissa O’Neil. (O’Neil plays Tim’s love interest and former rookie Lucy Chen.)

“What’s that in the road?” Winter asks before revving the car’s engine and causing O’Neil, 37, to burst into laughter.

An embarrassed Winter admits, “That was terrible. I gotta go again. I hated that.”

When he does another take, it doesn’t get better. “What’s that in the road?” Winter asks, looking over at his screen partner, whom he then accuses of laughing at him.

“No, I didn’t laugh,” O’Neil replies before starting to giggle in the passenger seat.

Winter is defeated, confessing, “I just gave a bad read and Melissa laughed at me. She made fun of me.”

While O’Neil playfully claims it was “actually my fault” that he broke during the scene, Winter takes ownership and shows off their fun dynamic.

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“It’s fine that she made fun of me, that was a bad read,” he says in a self-deprecating tone. Winter then pretends to be O’Neil scolding him, saying, “Psh, don’t do that again!”

O’Neil, for her part, isn’t immune to flubs on camera. In a scene with Winter and Richard T. Jones as Captain Wade Grey, she gets caught up in her lines, mumbling, “And the rookies followed them in. Nope, the Wookiees!”

After catching herself, O’Neil apologizes, but Jones just laughs. “It’s alright, we all love Star Wars,” he quips, referring to the furry characters from the movie franchise.

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Despite O’Neil’s intergalactic blunder, Winter is the winner of the season 7 blooper reel for dropping an f-bomb during a different scene.

“Little rough at the steak — safe house,” Mekia Cox, who portrays Nyla Harper, says as Winter and Nathan Fillion, who plays John Nolan, walk towards her at the LAPD precinct.

The moment she accidentally says “steak house,” Winter can’t control himself. “F***! You can’t be like, steak safe!” he yells, breaking character instantly.

“Hold it together, man,” Fillion, 54, tells his costar, who just yells back, “Steak, safe!”

Fillion teases, “You’re better than this,” grabbing Winter by the shoulder and taking him back for another attempt at the scene.

Us kicked off The Rookie’s blooper reel rollout, which will continue as the series gears up for its season 8 premiere next year. The cast and network will be releasing 12 videos in total that document season 7’s goofs, gaffes and giggles over the next week.

The Rookie finished the 2024-25 broadcast season in the top five shows among adults 18-49 and was ranked the No. 1 drama in the demo for the season, according to Nielsen rankings.

Those numbers were due in part to the wild story lines that took over season 7 — many of which will continue into season 8, which premieres on Tuesday, January 6.

During the May finale, fans and the LAPD learned that villain Monica Stevens (Bridget Regan) made an immunity deal with the FBI for the intel she previously stole from the police earlier in the season.

According to showrunner Alexi Hawley, Monica will return during the season 8 premiere, which will take some of the cast to Prague. Nolan (Fillion) and his wife, Bailey Nune (Jenna Dewan), will be part of the overseas cast, Hawley confirmed at San Diego Comic-Con in July, as will Harper (Cox) and Felix Solis’ FBI Supervisory Special Agent Matt Garza, who has previously crossed over from The Rookie: Feds.

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Season 8 will also answer questions about Tim (Winter) and Lucy’s (O’Neil) relationship after he asked her to move in with him, but she was sound asleep and didn’t hear the question.

“Cementing that conversation at the top of the next season and figuring out what the right next step is” for “Chenford” is a top priority, Hawley exclusively told Us in May.

He teased, “Whatever the definition of end game is, I think we’re getting there for sure.”

Now that we’ve kicked off The Rookie’s blooper reel rollout, Nathan Fillion will be next up in tickling your funny bone when he premieres the next reel for fans, followed by more cast videos in celebration of the new season premiering on ABC Tuesday, January 6, at 8 p.m. ET and next day on HULU.