Full House star Jodie Sweetin recalled being recognized from her iconic role as Stephanie Tanner while working a normal day job at a treatment center as an adult.
Sweetin, 44, played Stephanie Tanner, the eldest daughter of Danny Tanner (Bob Saget), in the hit ABC sitcom from 1987 to 1995, when she was aged between 5 and 13. After the show ended, Sweetin found herself returning to civilian life and worked as a director of operations at a treatment center for several years before Netflix greenlit Fuller House — a reboot of the original show — in 2015.
“For me, it was never a big deal. It was just my job,” Sweetin said on the “Taboo’s Comics & Kicks” podcast on Tuesday, June 30. “I think it was harder for other people. Working in treatment when people are detoxing and all of a sudden they’re like, ‘Are you the girl from Full House?’ And you’re like, ‘Yeah, no, you’re actually not tripping. I am.’”
“People would be like, ‘What are you doing here?’ I was like, ‘Working and paying my bills,’” she said. “Once people got to know me, they were like, ‘Oh, you don’t give a s***.’ I was like, ‘I don’t care. I’m just here to be a functioning human.’”
Sweetin recalled that she was making about $2,200 a month during her time at the treatment center.
“I loved my job. I loved working in treatment. I’d be there washing dishes and people would be like, ‘You’re taking out the trash?’ I was like, ‘Well, somebody has to,’” she remembered. “It was never a big thing to me.”
Full House’s Jodie Sweetin, Mary-Kate Olsen, Bob Saget and Candace Cameron Bure ABC/Everett Collection
Sweetin explained, “It’s always weird when [people] see you and they expect you have these millions of dollars or something from being on TV once, and you’re like, ‘Oh honey, that’s not how it goes.’ Notoriety doesn’t always equal financial stability.”
“I think that happens a lot with child stars,” she continued. “You’re suddenly in quote-unquote ‘civilian life,’ and it’s not so much you that has the problem with it; it’s that you’re constantly answering the question of, ‘Why are you here?’ and having to justify that you’re just another person.”
You got it, dude! America fell in love with the Tanner family in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and fans celebrated when news broke that the cast would be reuniting for Netflix’s Fuller House — see then-and-now photos!
Sweetin was content with her life and her job when Warner Bros. began developing a Full House sequel series in 2014. The show eventually landed at Netflix and premiered in 2016.
She said, “When I learned to be really happy in that environment, with hardly anything, with three divorces, two kids, working in treatment … I was like, ‘I’m good. I’m happy. I’m cool,’ and then it was like all of the things fell back into place.”
Fuller House ultimately aired for five seasons from 2016 to 2020, reuniting Sweetin with her former Full House costars, including Saget, Candace Cameron Bure, John Stamos, Dave Coulier, Andrea Barber and Lori Loughlin.
