Full House star John Stamos has been consistently making headlines lately tied to the release of his new memoir If You Would Have Told Me, which hit bookshelves a week ahead of Halloween’s arrival. The actor did have some scary topics to discuss when chatting with Howard Stern, by way of his bouts with alcoholism, but it wasn’t all cautionary tales. The Grandfathered vet also revealed the big way Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen shared their love and appreciation for Full House in the years after they’d rejected offers to reprise the role of Michelle Tanner for Netflix’s Fuller House.
For the most part, Stamos is the Full House vet who’d most often shared feelings about the Olsen twins choosing to remain out of the TV spotlight throughout Fuller House’s five-season run. During his latest appearance on The Howard Stern Show, the actor addressed the fact that his initially angry reaction didn’t help the matter (even though his comments did spark the siblings to present him with a porkchop of solidarity). But he also said Mary-Kate and Ashley smoothed things over with their former cast members while at Bob Saget’s funeral, and in a way that was quite meaningful to Stamos and others. In his words:
They came to Bob’s funeral, and it was so beautiful. We all needed it. No [they didn’t speak], but what they did, Howard, was they got us all together and said, ‘We love you. We loved our childhood. We’re grateful for you guys. We thank you for making those eight years so beautiful for us. We have such fond memories. We love you.' And everyone just needed to hear that. It was really…I think it was Bob doing that, you know?
For all that the Fuller House stars were genial and polite about the Tanner family never fully coming together again without Michelle around, it's not out of the question to think that some of the stars even beyond Stamos might have felt miffed by it. But hopefully by sharing such loving words at Bob Saget's funeral, the twins put others' minds at ease and convinced them it wasn't a personal dig.
To be sure, John Stamos definitely came around to understanding why Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen chose not to step back into the role of Michelle Tanner now as full-grown adults with hugely successful business ventures to their names. Co-star Jodie Sweetin arguably explained it best by pointing out that Full House was over before the Olsens hit double-digit ages, and so their time on the sitcom wasn't as formative an experience as it was for the rest of the cast, as they wouldn't have had nearly as many memories about the earliest seasons.
Of course, Dave Coulier's tale about farting in his kid co-star's faces could have also played a part in why some of those memories may have been repressed. Someone check and see if they had any "no-farts clauses" in their contracts.
Bob Saget's death in early 2022 was a huge blow to the comedic actor's fanbase, as well as to the fellow cast members that had become his makeshift family in the years since Full House came together. And it marked one of the first times that Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen spoke publicly about their TV dad, albeit in the form of a prepared statement.
While the Olsen sisters never opted in for more Tanner family fun, the show did drops some references to them throughout the years, including that final straight-to-camera joke in the penultimate episode. And fans can catch that and all the rest by streaming Fuller House in full with a Netflix subscription.
