Whenever John Stamos begins to tell a story, he writes in his new memoir, he often begins with a familiar phrase: “If you had told me.”
Based on his new book, which hits stores Tuesday, Stamos’ use of these little introductory flourishes reflects his larger personality. The memoir unfolds almost entirely in the present tense – as if Uncle Jesse himself had leaned against a wall to tell you a wild story from his youth. The 60-year-old actor looks back on his teenage years in Cypress, California, his first exposure on General Hospital and, of course, his ongoing love affair with the Beach Boys.
Over the decades, Stamos has worked with a number of Hollywood stars, many of whom appear in his memoirs. (No, he didn’t receive a quote from any of the Olsen twins.) Jamie Lee Curtis writes the foreword, praising her scream queen’s “comical energy, captivating sensibility, sharp humor, keen intelligence” and “childlike passion.” co-stars. ” In the pages that follow, Stamos reveals hookups (and near hookups) with the likes of Demi Moore and Heather Locklear, and yes, he remembers when Dave Coulier called him after hearing his ex Alanis Morissette say “You Oughta Know” for the first time. heard singing.
Of course, Stamos also paid tribute to his “Full House” co-star Bob Saget, who died last year at the age of 65. As he recalls, their relationship began competitively as they vied for good scenes with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen on Full House. However, in the end they became like a family.
Below are some of the best and most shocking insights from If You Would Have Tell Me.
Stamos and Saget’s brotherly connection
Stamos and Saget initially didn’t get along when they started on “Full House”; Stamos’ acting instincts apparently clashed with those of Saget’s “comedy Tourette.” While Stamos obsessively focused on small details in the script, Saget sabotaged his efforts with jokes, he recalls. Whenever it came time for another publicity photo, the two would argue over who got to hold Michelle.
Bob Saget, John Stamos and Dave Coulier on Full House in 1987.
ABC Photo Archive/Getty Images
“Bob is the most humble egomaniac I’ve ever met,” writes Stamos, “but he undercuts his narcissism by being so damn lovable… One day he thinks he’s the least desirable person on earth, on Next day he insists that everyone “The guest wife on ‘Full House’ is in love with him.”
However, over time the two learned to get along. At one point, Coulier, Saget, and Stamos’ sisters all became ill at the same time – which only added to the chemistry they had developed on set. (Saget’s sister Gay was diagnosed with scleroderma, Coulier’s sister Sharon was diagnosed with cervical, ovarian and uterine cancer, and Stamos’ sister Janeen was diagnosed with a brain tumor.) Years later, Stamos and Saget bonded even more through their respective divorces. At that time, writes Stamos, the newly minted bachelors developed from good friends into a kind of family.
Stamos remembers falling to his knees in a parking lot when he heard of Saget’s death in 2022. He felt lost, just as he had after losing his mother in 2014. However, the overflowing love for Saget struck him deeply.
“Bob had the idea that there would be a magical event that would make him the biggest star in the world,” Stamos writes, “and at the same time something that would solve all the other problems he was struggling with in his life. “
While Saget longed for validation, Stamos notes, “The irony is that he already had it. … I’m heartbroken that he thought he wasn’t good enough. He was and always will be for me and the rest of the world.”
Uncle Jesse wanted to get rid of “Full House” before it became a hit
Stamos writes that Full House creator Jeff Franklin “has always been my guy.” (He makes no mention of Franklin’s firing from “Fuller House” in 2018 due to toxic workplace allegations, nor the fact that he supported Franklin in his now-dismissed lawsuit against Bryan Behar, who replaced him as showrunner.)
During their first 90-minute meeting, Stamos wrote that he and Franklin hadn’t talked much about “Full House”; Instead, they spent “too much time trying to figure out whether or not we dated the same women.” In the end, he still said “yes” to the role of Uncle Jesse. Given the gimmick that his team had described to him, the concept of the show seemed fine as long as there wasn’t too much focus on the kid stuff.
Bob Saget, Mary Kate/Ashley Olsen, Jodie Sweetin, Candace Cameron, Dave Coulier and John Stamos pose for the cast portrait of the first season of “Full House” in 1987.
Bob D’Amico/Disney General entertainment content via Getty Images
“I don’t want to play second fiddle to some Rugrats,” Stamos recalls. Cue the Olsen twins, who Stamos initially tried to fire for screaming and crying too much. (When replacement toddlers didn’t work out, Mary-Kate and Ashley were back in the game.)
Stamos became distraught when he realized that the kids were getting an outsized share of the laughs on “Full House.” He called his team after feeling upstaged by Jodie Sweetin during the show’s first table read: “Let me get the hell off this show,” he begged.
However, when he got the call weeks later that the show might be coming to an end, he had seen how viewers connected to it and had a change of heart. But the idea that ultimately saved “Full House” was also a little ironic…
“Hold me closer, Tony Danza.”
Apparently Stamos has a very complicated relationship with Tony Danza. On the one hand, Danza was an accomplice at a low point in Stamos’ life – the other guy in a love triangle with his former girlfriend Teri Copley. On the other hand, Danza could be the reason “Full House” was so successful.
When Copley seemingly out of nowhere stopped returning his calls, Stamos drove to her Valley home while listening to “Tiny Dancer” and found Copley in the guest house with another man he didn’t know. “Do I pull him out of bed by his hair, kick him in the balls and beat him? She is my girlfriend. Who is this piece of shit?”
Stamos remembers fleeing the house and running down the driveway where an unknown Porsche was parked. Inside he saw a poster of Copley signed with love for a man named “Tony.” It wasn’t until he returned to his own car and heard Elton John’s tune, Stamos claims, that he realized who it was: “Hold me closer, Tony Danza.”
Years later: Who’s the boss? was intended to be ABC’s gateway program for a struggling Full House, which later enjoyed rapid success. “Well, what can I say?” Stamos writes. “Thanks, Tony Danza.”
“Bargain my balls!”
Like most of us, Stamos has experienced heartache more than once. Stamos says in the months before his split from Rebecca Romijn in 2004, their communication broke down. “I don’t speak openly about my feelings of emasculation,” he writes, “and she doesn’t share what’s in her heart.”
John Stamos and Rebecca Romijn in 1999.
Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
Although he initially believed they could work things out, the two eventually divorced – an experience that revealed a new side of himself to Stamos. “I never imagined I could be so angry and hateful toward another human being,” Stamos writes, “let alone one I had devoted myself to for a decade.”
Things came to a head during a mediation session where Stamos exploded over how much Romijn should reimburse him for the joint taxes he paid.
When the couple’s manager reminded him that they were in negotiations, Stamos shouted, “Negotiate my balls!” Romijn told the manager, “Give him everything I owe him,” Stamos recalls, and she agreed also agreed to leave the file to him.
Stamos reveals he was sexually abused as a child
In 2018, as Stamos prepared to accept a Lifetime Achievement Award from the nonprofit Childhelp for his advocacy on behalf of abused children, Stamos recalled that a disturbing childhood memory resurfaced in his mind.
“When I was little, I had a babysitter who was about eighteen or nineteen,” Stamos writes. “Most of the time it’s kind of fun. We play games, watch sitcoms and lounge on the couch. But sometimes she gets weird and it makes me feel weird too. Uncomfortable.”
Stamos remembers pretending to sleep while his babysitter moved his mouth and hands so that they were on or near her breasts – which he now recognizes as a “freeze reaction.”
In a recent conversation with People, Stamos said that he was 10 or 11 years old when the incidents occurred and that he devoted less than half a page to the incident because he “didn’t want the headlines to be like that.” , and I don’t. “I want the book to be about that.” At the same time, he admitted, “I felt like I had to talk about it… I didn’t have to deal with those feelings.”
Henry Holt and Co./The Daily Beast
Tiger Beat editor Doreen Lioy made Stamos a star – and then married the Night Stalker
Stamos has previously discussed his bizarre, tangential connection to the serial killer known as the Night Stalker, but here he goes into detail about it. As he describes Doreen Lioy, the former freelance editor was “a pale, virginal, lonely soul” when they first met, and she eventually became “a close family friend”; Stamos claims she even vacationed at her house.
In 1985, the actor writes, things took a strange turn when he and his family (and Lioy) saw a report about the Night Stalker on television. When she saw Richard Ramirez’s mugshot, Lioy was “hypnotized” by his face, Stamos recalls. “She leans over to my mother and whispers, ‘He has the quality of a little boy like Johnny.’ Don’t you think there’s something…captivating about him?'” Although Stamos says Lioy assured his mother she was joking, Loretta Stamos apparently wasn’t happy.
As previously reported, Lioy and Ramirez corresponded for years before finally getting married in 1996. According to Stamos, Lioy described her lover as “Rudolph Valentino, Mick Jagger and the Boogeyman all in one.” Stamos writes that Lioy also styled Ramirez before his trial and that she asked his mother to be her matron of honor before their wedding.
“It is this phone call that makes it clear to my father that Doreen is still calling his house,” Stamos writes. “He grabs my mother’s phone and screams, ‘Listen, you desperate psychopath, you’re leaving my wife and my family alone!’ And tell your friend to save you a place in hell!’”
Stamos’ drunken crime came at a low point in his life
After losing his mother in 2014, Stamos felt completely helpless. “She loved me so much that I didn’t have to learn to love myself,” Stamos writes. He remembers that after her death he “managed my emotions like a chemist.”
Stamos says he took the tranquilizer GHB to stay slim, Ambien to sleep and antidepressants to combat anger, and did the rest with alcohol and sex.
In 2015, Stamos received a drunk driving charge after police found him passed out in his car, “slumped in my seat like a scarecrow.” When he woke up in the hospital, the first person he saw was Saget (who he had planned to meet for a drink at The Palm). “No judgment, just concern and love.” He then decided to sit up.
Stamos told Lori Loughlin about the college admissions scandal
When Stamos received a text from a friend in March 2019 asking if his former “Full House” co-star was OK, the college admissions scandal had barely begun — as evidenced by the fact that Stamos gave Loughlin a Texted to ask her if she was okay didn’t know what he was talking about.
“I’ve seen some emails to Moss from lawyers lately, but I’m staying out of it,” he remembers her telling him, referring to her husband, Mossimo Giannulli. When the line started clicking, the two hung up, fearing the phone had been tapped.
John Stamos and Lori Loughlin on Full House in 1988.
ABC Photo Archive
Stamos praises how Loughlin “fought to survive” in the face of a public meltdown, although he never explains exactly what she actually did to stoke public anger. “No matter how hard she was hit,” he writes, “how desperate everyone was to cancel her and throw her in with the pack of brutal criminals, she stood firm and protected her daughters from the mud that was hurled at them day after day.” .”
Garry Marshall wanted to introduce Stamos to Julia Roberts
Stamos met Marshall while working on a show called You Again with his mentor Jack Klugman – who took Stamos under his wing when his father died. Stamos recalls that Klugman once took him to the writers’ room during a fight night and met Marshall, whom he called a friend for years.
“For some reason,” Stamos writes, “Garry always wants me to meet Julia. “You’re both nice people, you have good mothers, you should get to know Julia. She’s a good person, just like you.”
Although the two never met before Marshall’s death in 2016, Stamos remembers that fate intervened. As he stood at Marshall’s bedside and told the legendary director how much his mentorship had meant to him, Stamos heard a sniffle from across the room.
“Garry always wanted us to meet,” Roberts said as she stepped out of the shadows. “And here we are.”