- John Stamos says Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s “Fuller House” absence was “blown out of proportion.”
- The famous twins haven’t acted in about a decade and run a fashion label, The Row.
- “They’re such smart, powerful, important women,” Stamos said about Mary-Kate and Ashley.
John Stamos thinks people made too big a deal out of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen not returning to the “Full House” reboot, “Fuller House.”
Mary-Kate and Ashley took turns playing Michelle Tanner on “Full House” for eight seasons between 1987 and 1995. The two were only nine months old when they started filming the show, where Stamos played Michelle’s uncle, Jesse Katsopolis.
Although Stamos reprised his role as Uncle Jesse in the 2016 Netflix reboot, “Fuller House” (which ended in 2020 after five seasons), the famous twins didn’t make an appearance. The show addressed Michelle’s absence by saying that she was busy running a successful business in New York City, seemingly referencing Mary-Kate and Ashley’s real-life pivot to the fashion industry.
While promoting his new true-crime podcast, “The Grand Scheme: Snatching Sinatra,” Stamos said that “it’s remarkable” what Mary-Kate and Ashley have done since “Full House” ended and added that he was “proud” of them.
“I remember trying to get them on ‘Fuller House’ and they didn’t want to come in or there was some miscommunication, or whatever it was — it was blown out of proportion,” Stamos told Insider in July.
According to Stamos, Lori Loughlin, who played his on-screen wife Becky, told him that the Olsen twins had won several Council of Fashion Designers of America awards by the time conversations began about the reboot.
“That’s like winning an Oscar. It’s like ‘Oh okay, that makes sense,'” he said about his former costars winning the prestigious award.
Stamos added: “It’s really inspiring. It’s just strange to think of them as those little kids. Now they’re such smart, powerful, important women. And they were smart, powerful, important kids too, but it’s just great to see.”
Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection/Presley Ann/Patrick McMullan/Getty Images
“Fuller House” executive producer Bob Boyett said at the time that Mary-Kate and Ashley didn’t make an appearance in the reboot because of their busy schedules running their fashion label, The Row. Boyett also said that Ashley told him that she no longer feels comfortable being in front of the camera.
It isn’t particularly surprising that the sisters chose not to reprise their role as Michelle — Mary-Kate and Ashley haven’t acted in about a decade. Mary-Kate’s last acting role was in 2011 in the romantic-fantasy movie “Beastly,” while Ashley last had an uncredited appearance in 2010 in “I’m Still Here.”
Instead, they have focused on The Row, which they founded in 2006 while students at New York University, and a second clothing brand, Elizabeth & James (named after their siblings).
In a rare interview with i-D magazine in June, the sisters said that they are “discreet” people despite growing up in the spotlight. In a separate British Vogue interview in 2019, Mary-Kate and Ashley said it was important for them to keep a low profile.
“We’ve been there, we’ve done that, we started out that way,” Mary-Kate told the magazine in 2019. “But this is the way we chose to move forward in our lives: to not be in the spotlight, to really have something that speaks for itself.”