Jodie Sweetin Reveals the Parenting Advice the Full House Men Gave That's Anything But Rude
Thirty-six years later, the members of the Full House family still have a heart and a hand to hold onto.
Jodie Sweetin was just six years old when she began her eight-year stint as sassy Stephanie Tanner on the iconic sitcom. And, during that time, she found a second family among her co-stars, including Andrea Barber, who played the wacky Kimmy Gibler.
So, when the opportunity to relive their experience through the podcast How Rude, Tanneritos arose, Sweetin and Barber, who remained close friends even before reprising their roles on Netflix's Fuller House spinoff, said, "You got it, dude!" And it's proved to be an emotional experience for Sweetin, who had never watched the show prior to starting the project.
"It's like going back and watching all of the best home movies," Sweetin told E! News in an exclusive interview. "I'm really getting to watch what it is that the audience saw in the development of these relationships and how this family came together."
And the Tanners have remained tight-knit since Full House ended in 1987, often getting together to celebrate personal and professional milestones.
"There's constant laughing, that's one thing for sure," Sweetin said of cast reunions. "It's just so comfortable and we are a family. It's like, how do you feel when you go home and see all your family that you've known your whole life? It just feels like a common language, there's inside jokes, there's relationships and things that have been continuing on for 36 years with this group of people. It's a really wonderful thing because outside of my Full House family, the only people I've really known longer are my parents."
So she feels comfortable discussing life's more seemingly taboo issues like the fact that as she put it, bloating and discomfort as her body struggled to digest food left her feeling "like a Thanksgiving Day parade balloon." Talking it over with Barber, the two began using Align Probiotics "and I noticed I just didn't have that puffy, gross feeling after I ate," she said. "I noticed such a huge difference."
And she's not the only Tanner experiencing some major changes. The Full House crew welcomed a new member when Ashley Olsen gave birth to her and her husband Louis Eisner's first child, a baby boy named Otto, earlier this year.
While she hasn't had a chance to meet Olsen's son yet, Sweetin gushed that she was "so excited" for the couple.
"I just really hope that they get some peace and some quiet in their lives, I know they are always looking for that," the 41-year-old shared. "Being a mom is the most mindblowing accomplishment of your life and I am just really, really happy for her."
Though they ushered in Otto, the Full House family also said goodbye to its patriarch Bob Saget when the actor died in January 2022. But his legacy of using comedy as a means of celebration and coping endures, with Sweetin crediting Saget, along with her oncreen uncles Dave Coulier and John Stamos, for instilling that lesson in her.
"I learned how to deal with life with humor," she explained, "and I watched all of them go through a lot of life stuff, loss and grief and happy things and wonderful things, and turn it all into something that can make you laugh and I think that's how I think we get through things. So it's been a really important part of me."
It's the sort of messaging she's passed along to daughters Zoie, 15, and Beatrix, 13. But while they may be open to her wisdom on life, they aren't interested in taking any fashion cues from their mom.
"My kid came out the other day in Uggs boots and a Juicy Couture sweatsuit and I was like, 'Oh no, we've done this!'" Sweetin recalled with a laugh. "But now I remember when bell bottoms were a thing in the '90s and my mom was like, 'We did all of this, I have pictures of myself in these stupid outfits. You don't want to do this!' That's my kids now."
Now that's full circle.