If you didn’t grow up in the ‘90s, I can only try to convey how much it broke my little brain to find out the ex-boyfriend Alanis Morissette sang about in her lead single “You Oughta Know” was rumored to be none other than Full House actor Dave Coulier. Surely I was not the only teenager who suffered a little trauma back then from the inescapable mental picture of Uncle Joey doing dirty deeds in a movie theater. Skip to more than two decades later, and Coulier discussed his possible connection to the Jagged Little Pill album, including the time he asked Morissette what he was supposed to tell people.
Alanis Morissette and Dave Coulier dated for two years in the early ‘90s, around the time, Dave Coulier told Jim Norton & Sam Roberts on SiriusXM, that the singer was writing the music that would become one of the best-selling albums of all time and even inspire a Broadway musical. When he heard “You Oughta Know” on the radio a year after they broke up (and then bought the album), the Uncle Joey actor said he realized he “may have really hurt” Morissette. The former couple spoke about it when they reconnected years after Jagged Little Pill’s release, he said:
Years later we reconnected, and she couldn’t have been sweeter, and I said, ‘What do you want me to say when people ask me about this relationship?’ and she said, ‘You can say whatever you want.’ So she was really sweet about it. She was kind.
It seems like by telling him he could say whatever he wanted, Alanis Morissette was willing to let him either deny or own up to any of the betrayals she sang about, as she herself remains mum on her muses. Morissette told Andy Cohen in 2019 that about “about six people” have taken credit for being the guy in “You Oughta Know.”
It wasn’t just Jagged Little Pill’s lead single that drew Dave Coulier’s attention, though. In “Right Through You,” Alanis Morissette sings, “Your shake is like a fish,” and the “dead fish” handshake was a thing they had done, said Coulier.
Regardless of how much of the album’s inspiration came from the Full House actor — who recently celebrated a big sobriety milestone — it doesn’t sound like there is a lot of lingering anger for either party, as Dave Coulier called his ex-girlfriend funny, sweet, super intelligent and super talented. He even said when his sister was dying of cancer, Alanis Morissette drove from Toronto to Detroit to sit with her in the hospital and play music for her.
Jagged Little Pill continues to be relevant more than 25 years later, with its music being introduced to a new audience, often via different platforms. Bridgerton Season 2 viewers might have noticed a classical version of “You Oughta Know” playing in Episode 5, after Anthony confessed his true desires to Kate. Certainly fans of the album hope its music never dies, and hopefully the men who inspired her words have made peace with that too.
If you want to see Dave Coulier in a more family-friendly light than Jagged Little Pill would suggest, you can find him playing Uncle Joey on Full House and its spinoff Fuller House, which are both available for streaming with a Netflix subscription. While you're there, check out some of the other best shows on Netflix, and see what premieres are coming soon with our 2022 TV Schedule.
