‘Full House’ Star John Stamos Reveals He Was Abused As A Child

John Stamos has disclosed that he was sexually abused as a child by a babysitter.

He revealed it took place when he was around 10 or 11 years old and credits working on his new memoir, If You Would Have Told Me, with helping him acknowledge the abuse.

Stamos decided to write the memoir after becoming a father and the death of his Full House co-star, Bob Saget.

“It was like you’re playing dead so they’ll stop. But it wasn’t totally aggressive,” Stamos told People of the abuse. “I don’t know, it was not good.”

For Stamos, the memory first uncovered when he was writing a speech for an award for a kids’ charity.

“I started to write it, and that’s when it really came out. And then I thought, ‘No, tonight is not about me. It’s about the kids. I’m going to pack it away again until the right moment,’” he said.

Stamos also does not want the abuse story to define his memoir.

“I didn’t want the headlines to be that, and I didn’t want the book to be over that. It was a page or something, but I felt I had to talk about it,” he stated. 

A known advocate for children, Stamos is a celebrity ambassador for ChildHelp, a child abuse charity.

The book is set to be released on October 24.

Stamos will begin a book tour on October 23 for his memoir, which is described by his publisher as a “universal story about friendship, love, loss, and the courage to embrace love once more.”