John Stamos talks about ‘the blessing and the curse’ that ‘Three’ was in his life

John Stamos wants to read you a story. In fact, he insists. Of course, you could read his 352-page new memoir, “If You Would Have Told Me,” to be published by Henry Holt on October 24.

But wouldn’t you rather hear him narrate the audiobook as he guides you through his 60s with his voice, his emotions? “I mean, yes, you can have your own ideas of how things look or sound,” he said, “but it’s so real to me.”

Howard Stern took Stamos’ suggestion and listened. “Then he left me the longest message about why he loved it,” Stamos said, playing it in his Los Angeles office, guitars on the wall behind him, drums at his side, the charm and the hair and the sincerity he presented. while playing bad boys with hearts of gold —Blackie Parrish on “General Hospital”, Uncle Jesse on “Three Is Awesome”, Dr. Tony Gates on “ER”— is still in the spotlight.

Stamos’ reading was excellent, Stern said. He didn’t exaggerate; he did not underestimate; he did it perfectly. And the stories were captivating and even self-deprecating. Stamos hasn’t criticized anyone, even when talking about his alcoholism and divorce.

“This showed us a real sign of intelligence, so I think the book is a success,” Stern added in the message. “You definitely had a story to tell.”

It’s also the first time Stamos has revealed any of this publicly. “In a month, whoever decides to read it will know a lot,” he said. “I saw a lot of deep, dark things. And I thought, ‘If I’m not 100% honest, why am I doing this?’ But I’ve never been 100% honest before in my life. That’s not how I was raised. My dad said : ‘Don’t talk about politics. Don’t talk about religion. Keep it light. Keep it superficial. Be Dean Martin’.”

“And here I was for many years without seeing a clear picture because I was drinking and stuff, trying to fulfill the idea of ​​someone else living through me,” he added. “I felt like it was my duty to be that guy.”

Dark is not what typically comes to mind when thinking of Stamos. His mother used to say that he decided to be an actor at some point between being born and getting home from the hospital. An Orange County boy obsessed with Disneyland, he was determined to be famous. It never occurred to him that he wouldn’t be.

“So I spent the next 20 years trying to get back to that audacity, which I think is where I am now,” he said. “Sobriety, I’m telling you, is a huge thing. Because I would walk into a party or a meeting and I would have to get a little drunk. ‘Hey, that makes me charming. That makes me funny. That makes me confused.’ And people saw that. There was confusion around me, women, the business. If I had straightened myself out 10, 15 years earlier, I think I would have been closer to a career like George Clooney’s than I am now.”

Stamos doesn’t shy away from this darkness in the book, starting with the first chapter when, in June 2015 — his marriage to Rebecca Romijn already broken, his parents recently deceased, his career not quite what he had dreamed of — he swerves in his Mercedes down Rodeo Drive while Fans, recognizing that Stamos is completely drunk, yell for him to stop.

Finally he stops, and the police find him passed out, put him in an ambulance to the hospital, and charge him with a misdemeanor for driving under the influence. When he wakes up, his Big Three co-star Bob Saget is beside him. “No judgment, just concern and love,” Stamos writes.

Concern and love abounded. Even before he actually met Stamos, Jamie Lee Curtis thought he would be perfect to play his father, Tony Curtis. “They have the same comedic energy, endearing charm, sharp wit, sharp wit, childlike passion and, dare I say, profound sadness behind the mask of a ridiculously handsome man,” she writes in the book’s foreword.

She had witnessed this sadness firsthand. “I saw him at a business party in New York when he was not sober, and I looked into his beautiful eyes and tried to communicate with mine that there was another path for him.”

When he and Curtis starred together on the series “Scream Queens” in 2016, Stamos was newly sober and in a relationship with Caitlin McHugh, the actress who would become his wife. “I have people I talk to every day,” he said. One of them is Jamie.

When Stamos finally agreed to write his memoir — collaborating with writer Daphne Young, who helped him give structure to what he called vomited drafts — he tackled the chapters he thought would be the most challenging: his DUI arrest and unexpected death of Saget in January 2022, which devastated him.

“It’s like he never leaves anything behind,” Stamos said of Saget. “When he died, I knew he loved me. I knew he cared about me. He told me that every day. So that’s one of the lessons you learn: Tomorrow is never guaranteed, so make the best of where you are, who you are with. And by the way, those are easy things to say. They’re hard to do.”

But as it turned out, these two chapters were not the most difficult for him. “Guess what was hardest to write about?” he said, and then responded. “‘Three is too much’.”

Stamos knew how much affection viewers had for the sitcom. But after eight years, he couldn’t wait to leave the show that made him famous.

“It was a blessing and a curse,” he said — one that led him to do five Broadway plays, including “Cabaret,” “Bye Bye Birdie” and Gore Vidal’s “The Best Man,” to convince audiences, and perhaps himself, that he wasn’t just a familiar face. He had versatility. He had skills.

“It always killed me that everyone knew me for that, that idiot with the mullet hair,” he said.

Lori Loughlin, who played Uncle Jesse’s on-screen love Becky in “The Big Three” and has known Stamos since the days of daytime television, was increasingly aware of his pain. “He’s extremely talented in a lot of different areas, and I think people are finally starting to recognize, ‘Oh, this is the real guy. He’s all of that,'” she said in a phone interview. “But in the beginning, he had to work to prove it.”

“Then, just as he got things in order, Caitlin came along, and Billy’s birth has been the greatest gift for John,” she said. “I’m sure he’ll say that his family is everything to him now.”

Billy has inherited his father’s charm and looks, although his childish sense of humor is closer to Saget’s, but Stamos wants to keep him as innocent as possible. “It will be great for him, and it will be difficult,” he said. “I don’t want him to be living…” —he stops— “He can be anything in the world he wants to be, except an Instagram model.”

After his arrest for driving under the influence, Stamos went to rehab, where he finally accepted responsibility for his role in the disappointments that haunted him — and, upon leaving, recognized how much he still had to lose.

“I still remember what it was like the next morning, how it tasted,” he said of his drink. “It’s still very fresh for me. I thought, ‘I don’t want this anymore’.”

A few days before our interview, Stamos played drums with the Beach Boys at the SeaHearNow festival in Asbury Park, New Jersey — something he’s been doing when time permits since 1983, when, at a concert in San Diego, Mike Love saw girls screaming. and running after Stamos and decided to take advantage of that madness by bringing him on stage to sing “Barbara Ann.”

“The reality of it all is beyond my wildest dreams,” Stamos writes of this experience. “As soon as it’s over, I want to do it all over again. It’s like great sex; that lustful, primal moment when you suddenly find your rhythm and understand everything.”

But he wasn’t so sure when Love told him about SeaHearNow — something about it not being the right place for an oldies music group and a former teen idol. So he gave in.

“There were about 50,000 of our best friends there, and he was playing the drums like a champion, and everyone was at the top of their game,” said Love, who officiated Stamos’ wedding to McHugh. “John has always been, and continues to be, an inspiration and a little extra energy and, of course, a lot of charisma.”

Then, when Stamos walked off stage, he saw that Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl was behind him, filming. Eventually, the whole band went to his trailer. The drummers from Greta Van Fleet and Weezer also attended.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “Normally, I’m not cynical, but all of a sudden, you gain respect from these younger people. It’s kind of an elder statesman thing. And then you think, ‘Well, what comes next? Death?’.”

“But you can’t think like that,” he continued. “Just keep creating. That’s how I’m thinking — be better at what you do.”