John Stamos on Fatherhood: ‘My Whole Life I’ve Wanted to Be a Dad’
By Movieguide® Contributor
FULL HOUSE star John Stamos recently shared the joy he’s found in fatherhood and how it has taught him to focus on relationships and family above all else.
“My whole life, I’ve wanted to be a dad,” Stamos told Dave Coulier on the “Full House Rewind” podcast. “It was one of those things that I thought, you know, I went through a rough period there for a while…I was confused, my loss of my dad was very hard on me, as you know, and then losing my mother; I was a mess. I was just not being the guy they raised. I was someone they wouldn’t have been proud of at that moment.”
“I went to rehab, and I came out, and I had FULLER HOUSE waiting for me, and this other show GRANDFATHERED, and I said, ‘I’ve got to straighten up here. I’ve got too much to lose…’” he continued. “During my dark time, the point I was trying to get to was that I was so stupid to think like, I’ve done it all. I could check play with the Beach Boys, I’m in a sitcom blah blah blah blah. I hadn’t done it all. I didn’t have a child. I didn’t have a family of my own.”
Stamos’ son, Billy, was born in 2018, and the actor has had a blast finally fulfilling the role that he has talked about – and portrayed on TV – for so many years.
“I’ll be a fun dad. I’ve been practicing for a long time. I’ve done every schtick you can do with a baby on TV…all the bits and jokes and diaper gags. I’ll probably just do all that stuff,” Stamos told PEOPLE just before his son was born.
Five years later, Stamos isn’t the only one in the house using those gags anymore. Now that his son is old enough, he has started watching FULL HOUSE and using Uncle Jesse’s jokes against Stamos.
“[Billy] has started to watch it. Early on I’d be like, you know, ‘Billy go put your toys away.’ [He’d respond] ‘You got it dude!’” Stamos said. “He does those lines, but he kind of, yeah, he likes [the show].”
“Billy loves to laugh, and I love to hear him laugh,” he said in 2021. “He’s funnier than me already. He likes to do bits…I love that he likes to laugh and that he likes to make other people laugh and wants other people happy.”
Stamos has also used his roles on animated kids’ shows to connect with his son and combine his job with his family life.
“[Billy] loved the show MICKEY’S ADVENTURE or something and I play this pirate, you know, I think I called and said ‘How do I do a pirate.’” Stamos said. “Then he got tired of that and then his show was SPIDEY AND HIS AMAZING FRIENDS, and I do Iron Man, but he’s starting to get it. We’re really clicking on a lot of things now.”
Movieguide® previously reported on Stamos:
John Stamos’ new memoir, “If You Would Have Told Me,” looks back on his acting career, taking special note of the lessons he learned through his friendship with Bob Saget.
While the two were dear friends by the end of FULL HOUSE, differences in their approach to acting drove a wedge in their relationship when they first met.
Stamos told Good Morning America that he and Saget “did not get along” due to their “very different processes.”
“Bob was addicted to laughs,” Stamos said. “It was a drug for him. He had to make people laugh.” Stamos came from the world of soaps and sitcoms where drama was key.
Over the eight seasons of FULL HOUSE, however, the two became close friends, staying connected through Saget’s death in 2022. In fact, Saget’s death urged Statmos to write about his life, Good Housekeeping reports.
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