LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: In his debut memoir 'If You Would Have Told Me', John Stamos reveals for the first time that he was sexually abused by his babysitter when he was a child.
The 'Full House' star says that he did not confront the abuse until he started writing his book.
How old was John Stamos when he faced sexual abuse?
The 'Big Shot' star said that his babysitter was a girl who allegedly took advantage of him when he was around 10 or 11 years old.
He said he did not tell anyone about it and tried to brush it off as a normal thing.
“I think I told myself, like, ‘Ah, it’s girls, man.’ It was like you’re playing dead so they’ll stop. But it wasn’t totally aggressive,” he recalled, adding “I don’t know, it was not good.”
He said he always knew something was wrong, but he “packed it away as people do”, People reports. The 60-year-old's book is coming out on October 24.
John Stamos said when he first realized he tried to 'pack it away'
He realized the extent of his trauma when he was preparing a speech for a prize he got for helping abused children.
He said that he began to write and his memories came flooding back. But he chose to not focus on himself or his trauma that night.
He said, “No, tonight is not about me. It’s about the kids. I’m going to pack it away again until the right moment.”
He continued, “Otherwise, I’m a phony f**k. It’s like, ‘Come on.’”
John Stamos says he should not have had to deal with those feelings
He said he did not want to make it a big deal or focus on himself. He said, "It was a page or something, but I felt I had to talk about it."
He added, "It was weird. It was something that...I shouldn’t have had to deal with those feelings.”
He also said that he would not tolerate anyone doing that to his son Billy, five, who he shares with his wife Caitlin McHugh Stamos.
He said, “But, I’ll tell you, if I found out someone was doing that to my son, that’s a totally different story.”
He wanted his book to be a human story, not a hero story. He said he realized that the hero story was “b******t”. He said, “But it was hard.”
