John Stamos has a memoir on the way that'll look back across his successful life and career. Ahead of its release, he opened up about one of the traumatic experiences from his past that is highlighted within, as the Full House and Fuller House star explained coming to terms with the realization that he was sexually abused in his childhood by a babysitter, which unsurprisingly had a strong impact on him. Stamos spoke candidly about the incident, as well as why he chose not to share the trauma at the time when he initially reassessed those memories.
In an interview with People, Stamos spoke briefly about the incident, which occurred when he was around 10 or 11 years old, and said that it took him going through the process of writing his book If You Would Have Told Me: A Memoir to really address that time in his life in full. He spoke about having that unfortunate event taking up space in the corners of his mind, and said:
I mean, I knew it was always in the back, and I do so much advocacy for the [survivors]. I felt like, I remembered it slightly. It has always been there, but I packed it away as people do, right?...I think I told myself, like, 'Ah, it's girls, man.'...It was like you're playing dead, so they'll stop. But it wasn't totally aggressive. I don't know, it was not good.
John Stamos has served as a celebrity advocate for Childhelp, an agency founded in 1959 to support the prevention and treatment of child abuse. All while advocating for other survivors, the now 60-year-old actor had been perhaps unconsciously holding onto the fact that he, too, was a survivor of child abuse.
At least one opportunity presented itself where Stamos considered going public with his experiences, as part of an acceptance speech he was writing ahead of being granted an award for child advocacy. He opened up about why he ultimately decided not to reveal his own past traumas at that time:
I started to write it, and that's when it really came out. And then I thought, 'No, tonight is not about me. It's about the kids. I'm going to pack it away again until the right moment. Otherwise, I'm a phony fuck. It's like, 'Come on.' I didn't want the headlines to be that, and I didn't want the book to be over that.
As he mentioned above, John Stamos did not wish for readers to come away from his memoir thinking mainly about the sexual abuse he suffered as a child. The actor revealed only a page or so within the upcoming publication is centered on it.
Outside of that moment, John Stamos' book will talk about his early days flipping burgers for his father, as well as his journey to becoming a household name in pop culture. This includes his time in General Hospital, working on ER, and the other wildly popular sitcom he was a part of with the late Bob Saget.
As for what we'll learn outside of his on-screen roles, the description confirmed Stamos will talk about his time performing with The Beach Boys. There's also going to be more personal stuff revealed, likely more personal than the DVDs he kept after Netflix stopped sending them out.
John Stamos' If You Would Have Told Me: A Memoir is available in stores on Tuesday, October 24th. Pick up the book to learn more about the actor's life and other possibly more previously unrevealed secrets about him.
