John Stamos reveals childhood sexual abuse in upcoming memoir. Renowned for his roles in “Full House” and “Fuller House,” John candidly discloses his experience of childhood sexual abuse in his forthcoming memoir, “If You Would Have Told Me.”
Speaking to People magazine, Stamos shared his motivation for including this deeply personal incident in his book, explaining that he had previously contemplated addressing it while receiving an award for his advocacy work on behalf of abused children. Ultimately, he refrained from sharing it at the time, fearing it would come across as insincere.
“I started to write about it, and that’s when it all came flooding out,” he recounted. “Then I thought, ‘No, tonight is not about me. It’s about the kids. I’ll tuck it away again until the right moment.'”
Stamos disclosed that the abuse occurred when he was around 10 or 11 years old and was perpetrated by his babysitter. “I mean, I knew it was always there in the background, and I’m such an advocate for survivors,” he noted. “I felt like I remembered it vaguely. It had always been there, but I buried it, as people often do.”
John Stamos (Credits: Vanity Fair)
The process of writing the memoir helped Stamos realize that the alleged incident, which he had never shared with anyone, was inappropriate. “I think I told myself, ‘Oh, it’s nothing, man,'” he admitted. “It was like pretending to be lifeless so they would stop.”
In his memoir, Stamos kept his reflections on this period relatively brief for reasons similar to his reluctance to address it during his speech. “I didn’t want the headlines to focus on that, and I didn’t want the book to be defined by it,” he explained. “It was a page or so, but I felt the need to discuss it. I initially set out to write a hero’s story, but as I worked on it, I decided to tell a human story. Because a hero’s story is fake. And unless I was completely honest, what was the point, right?”
Nonetheless, the actor acknowledged that exposing such vulnerability was a difficult step, and he emphasized that he should never have had to grapple with those emotions.
Reflecting on his own experience, Stamos admitted that as a survivor and a father of a 5-year-old son, his response would be profoundly different today. “If I discovered that someone was doing that to my son, it’s an entirely different situation,” he stated during the interview with the magazine.
