John Stamos cuts to the chase when describing his new memoir, If You Would Have Told Me, calling it “a story about Hollywood, fame, fortune and f***ups.” It’s also about family — becoming a dad at age 54 — and friendships, including his brotherly love for Bob Saget.
He writes with self-deprecating humor and candor about the ups and downs of his life and career — Full/Fuller House, Broadway, ER, General Hospital and being an honorary member of the Beach Boys. As for the “f***ups,” there are a few, largely stemming from his alcohol abuse, but the 60-year-old’s marriage to Rebecca Romijn also fits the bill. (The chapter on their divorce is titled “Negotiate my balls.”) There are also mullet jokes galore and the reveal of a long rivalry with — of all people — Tony Danza. Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis tees it all off with a foreword, about how Stamos will “try to charm the heck out of you … [and] succeed, every time” but also touch readers with his “deep goodness.” She calls him a “good man,” one who is “human.”
Here, we play a little memoir roulette, flipping around to the must-read parts from the 333-page book…
Stamos’s infamous DUI arrest (chapter 1)
Stamos wastes no time getting into his rock bottom. It was June 12, 2015 as he was driving around Beverly Hills inebriated after something he “took or drank” kicked in and fans called 911. “Hey, Uncle Jesse, pull over, you’re f***ed-up” is the very first line of his book (pg. 5). In the years prior, his marriage to Romijn ended (as did his dream of a family), his parents died and he was “managing my emotions like a chemist. A little of this to get happy, a little of that to give me confidence, some of this to go to sleep and some of that to get back up and do it all over again the next day.” He writes that while he was not suicidal, there’s a “selfishness in death that I flirt with… It’s okay if I die. Fine. I’ve done it all.” The police find him — “blacked out, slumped in my seat like a scarecrow,” cuff him and take him to the hospital. He’s treated — and booked on a misdemeanor charge — before being released. As soon has he gets home, he drinks a bottle of wine.
Stamos says over his long career he’s told many stories leading with “If you would have told me…” which became the title for his memoir. (Henry Holt and Co.)
His marriage to and bitter divorce from Rebecca Romijn-Stamos (chapters 20, 23, 24)
He and his Full House wife, Lori Loughlin, were both single and exploring something romantic (more on that in a sec) when, while together at the 1994 Victoria’s Secret after-show, he saw Romijn and got her number. He proposes to the then-high-end catalog model (as he described her pre-X-Men Mystique era) in the nude with a cigar band for a ring. She says yes, they marry in 1998 in front of 500 of their closest friends. His own career, post-Full House, not moving the way he wanted, he’s super-invested in Romijn’s, taking some credit for helping her transition to House of Style host and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover girl. But as Romijn’s career starts to soar, he claims he starts to lose himself — and drinking too much. He feels she looks down on him because she’s become a movie star, to his TV stardom, and has new friends who he thinks are awful (“entourage of ass-kissers”). He refers to “betrayal,” blaming her for it, on pg. 214. They secretly separate on March 17, 2003, but she calls months later saying she’ll take him back — as long as he basically adheres to a list of demands. She goes with him to promote his film Knots at SXSW on March 14, 2004 — and he says the photos of them there “will be the last pictures ever taken of the two of us together. It’s one of our best performances, acting like we are happy and still in love.” They split for good after.
John Stamos writes that his last appearance with Rebecca Romijn, during the 2004 SXSW Festival, was “one of our best performances, acting like we are happy and still in love.” (Randall Michelson/WireImage) (Randall Michelson Archive via Getty Images)
Stamos, who wanted to be famous from the time he was a kid, is upset with the media narrative that the ex-teen idol was dumped by the Marvel movie star. “I never knew I could be so angry and hate-filled toward another human being,” he wrote. He’s “heartbroken” and feels “like a failure.” On June 1, 2004 they mediate in their business manager’s office. He consumes six beers prior. It’s determined that Romijn, now earning bank, owes Stamos “a large sum of money,” but their business manager suggests she pay half of what she owes and they call it a day. “I explode,” he writes, “All that pent-up rage and sadness I’ve been stuffing rises to the surface. “Fair? F*** fair! You wanna know what she did to me?” When Stamos is reminded it’s a negotiation, he shouts to the room, including to his estranged wife, “Negotiate my balls!” Romijn agrees to pay the whole amount and it’s decided that Stamos will file for divorce first, to reduce the sting of the stories about him being dumped. They hug goodbye and he never sees her again. (Romijn, who married Jerry O’Connell in 2007, has seen him, she’s said, while driving with her twin daughters.)
Coming clean to himself at rehab (chapter 24)
It’s 11 years later that Stamos ends up in rehab after his DUI, and he walks in still carrying grudges against Romijn, especially because his dream of having a family are dashed. On page 220, he writes, “Instead of getting to work” on himself after their divorce, “I’m getting loaded, getting in my car, and getting a DUI that sends me to rehab. It’s in my moment of greatest shame that I let go and forgive Rebecca and myself.” It happens when his rehab counselor has him list his resentments, and at “warp speed” he documents “all the sh***ty stuff my ex-wife did to me” as she “single-handedly ruined our marriage and my life.” After he gets it down, he’s asked to list his role in the resentments. Touché. “I was responsible for the demise of our relationship more than I want to believe,” he admits. It leads him to finally “come clean to myself” as well as “rebuild and grow.”
Losing his “brother” Bob (chapter 37)
There are Saget stories throughout the book (starting on pg. 12), but grab a tissue for the final chapter. He writes about his last night out with Saget, in December 2021, just weeks before he died in a Florida hotel after blunt head trauma. Their friendship was really a journey — from them not liking each other at the start of Full House to being bachelors again at the same time between marriages, and sometimes bedmates (platonic, folks). He calls Saget the “brother I always wanted” and compares their relationship to that of “an old married couple: all bickering, no sex.” Their last night together, they were on a double date with their wives (Stamos married Caitlin McHugh in 2018 — the same year Saget married Kelly Rizzo) — and there was such contentment for both men, who had countless conversations through the years about their desire to find love again. He writes that Saget was “the calmest I’ve ever seen him … not holding court or interrupting like a madman.” Saget died Jan. 9, 2022 — and Stamos detailed the play-by-play of finding out, getting the confirmation from Rizzo who called him wailing screaming.
Stamos says Saget was the “brother I always wanted.” (J. Merritt/FilmMagic) (J. Merritt via Getty Images)
He tried to get the Olsen twins fired — and other Full House tea (chapters 15, 16, 19)
Stamos tells you that he was not so into the show that made him super famous when it began. Feeling upstaged by the kids, Uncle Jesse calls his people and demands they get him off the show — or “pull the rip cord on this family-friendly hell” (pg. 125). He wants Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, who played Michelle Tanner, gone because they’re always crying. “That’s it! It’s either me or them,” he writes of the future fashion moguls. “They’ll ruin this show and my career.” Have mercy! While they are replaced — for a minute — but it doesn’t last because Stamos says the replacements were “calm” but “homely as hell.” (He was a homely child, so felt it was OK to say.) He grew to love his role on the show, which became a quick hit, and took the kids under his wing, recalling taking the Olsens on their first trip to Disneyland. (He’s a Disney fanatic.) Stamos said that after Saget and Dave Coulier both lost sisters, around 1994, their bond really solidified.
The Full House cast in 1989. (ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images) (ABC Photo Archives via Getty Images)
Dancing around a romance with Lori Loughlin (chapters 19 and 20)
Stamos admits to being caught between his Full House wife, the woman who played Aunt Becky, and Romijn in 1994. He and his co-star were both single and thinking of maybe giving it a go. “I know what makes her laugh, we get each other, and we have the sort of friendship that’s supposed to be the foundation of a great, lasting relationship,” he writes on pg. 177. There was a genuine “Lori or Rebecca? Rebecca or Lori” debate. He also reveals, pg. 165, that “back in the day” circa their soap opera eras, “we had a single, long-lost date at Disneyland where we made out at the Haunted Mansion. She can’t remember the moment. Guess it wasn’t as great for her as it was for me.” He also writes about the college admissions scandal, and how he called Loughlin the second he saw it on the news, in March 2019, and their phone call is being tapped by the FBI. “I’m not sure I could have taken the hit she did with the resilience she showed,” he writes while recapping the drama which landed Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, in prison.
Stamos says he and Loughlin once made out. She doesn’t remember. (Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic) (Paul Archuleta via Getty Images)
Who’s the Nemesis? Tony Danza (chapter 11)
There are truly some great showbiz stories sprinkled throughout the book, from moments with mentor-types (Mike Love, Jack Klugman, Don Rickles and James Earl Jones) to meeting Julia Roberts (on Garry Marshall’s deathbed, pg. 119), Sammy Davis Jr. (pg. 81), Elizabeth Taylor (pg. 87), Frank Sinatra (114) and rolling into Philly on a train with a post-Rocky III Mr. T who’s screaming, “I’ll get you, Balboa!” (pg. 110). Perhaps most surprising is a long-running feud with, of all people, Tony Micelli. Pre-Full House, Stamos is dating I Married a Centerfold actress Teri Copley for a year when he surprises her at her house and finds her in bed with Danza. “Who is this piece of s***?” he recalls thinking on (pg. 98). “He looks familiar… He rolls over, exposing his ripped abs and muscular body.” He ran out and was driving home listening to “Tiny Dancer” when it hit him. “I mouth the words to [the song] and realize the name of my rival: ‘Hold me closer, Tony Danza…” Stamos mentions Danza at other parts as well, including how Who’s the Boss? was the lead in to Full House and took it from a struggling show to a hit. “Well what can I say? Thanks, Tony Danza,” he writes (pg. 134). For the record, Copley denies cheating on Stamos with Danza. She says they had broken up.
John Stamos with Teri Copley in 1985. He writes that he showed up at his girlfriend Copley’s house and she was in bed with Tony Danza. (Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images) (Ron Galella via Getty Images)
For the record, Stamos — who writes about having his playboy persona — also claims to have hooked up with beauties including Demi Moore in their General Hospital days (pg. 65) and his Never Too Young to Die co-star Vanity (pg. 101), the latter was in public while dining with others at a restaurant. He dated Paula Abdul, telling a story about how he “passed out during an intimate moment” between them (pg. 144), and Chelsea Noble, who went on to marry his TV niece Candace Cameron’s brother, Kirk Cameron (pg. 137). He came close with Heather Locklear (pg. 71), but was too drunk after she whipped him in the drinking game Quarters.
Resurfacing past sexual abuse (chapter 35)
On a serious note, the actor writes about being a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, revealing that he was victimized by a childhood babysitter, who was 18, when he was a boy. It was in 2018, when he was writing a speech before collecting Childhelp’s lifetime achievement award for his advocacy work, that the memories were resurfaced. “It’s something I packed away,” he writes. He’s since spoken out about it, saying on Instagram, “If sharing my story helps just one person, then I’m glad I did.”
Finding his “Disney girl” and getting the family he’s long dreamed of (chapters 33, 34, 35, 36)
Stamos meets his second wife in 2011 on the set of Law & Order: SVU. They’re getting their makeup done and McHugh is talking about her upcoming wedding when Stamos utters the words, “Don’t get married,” (pg. 277). Her relationship status doesn’t stop his crush on the “most naturally beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” who loves Disney as much as he does. At the end of the day, he offers to take a photo with her on his phone to text it to her and get her number. (To this day, she’s in his contacts as “The Girl From SVU.”) They text and became friendly — until she says her fiancé is uncomfortable. He says he spent the next 5.5 years getting over her.
In 2016, Stamos is taping Fuller House and sees McHugh in the audience. She’s divorced … there with a new boyfriend. Stamos “stalks” her Instagram and when it seemed like she’s single again invites her to Disney. She says yes. Six months later, they’re living together and trying for a baby soon after. They have a fertility assistance (which he makes very humorous, starting on pg. 285), and she gets pregnant. He proposes at Disney and having their wedding rings stolen on the eve of their nuptials doesn’t put a damper on their celebration. Their son Billy is born in 2018. “There is a conceit in corny rom-coms where the protagonist says, ‘You complete me,'” Stamos writes (pg. 307). “As a Disney guy, I’m down with a certain level of sentimentalism and sappiness, but I never really understood the idea of being ‘completed.’ I get it now.”
If You Would Have Told Me by John Stamos is on sale now.
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, contact Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Treatment Referral Helpline at 800-662-HELP (4357).
If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, help is available. RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Hotline is here for survivors 24/7 with free, anonymous help. 800.656.HOPE (4673) and online.rainn.org.
If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, call 911, or call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 or 1-800-273-8255 or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.
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