When it comes to ’90s sitcoms that have a soft spot in all our hearts, Full House is easily in many people’s top five.
However, for as many laughs as the Tanner family and crew brought into our homes, the show’s cast members have undergone some difficult — and in some cases heartbreaking — health challenges offscreen. On Jan. 9, 2022, the TV family lost their patriarch when Bob Saget was found dead in his hotel room at The Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grande Lakes in Florida. It was later discovered he suffered blunt head trauma following an unwitnessed fall.
Jodie Sweetin told E! in 2016 that the cast’s closeness has gotten them all through some tough times. “We have a family. I don’t think that there’s anything that we go through, good, bad, or daily stuff, that we can’t share with each other and enjoy and support and love each other. We’ve known each other for almost 30 years now,” Sweetin said. “When you are as close to people as we are to each other, for that long, you become a family. We support and love each other no matter what. It becomes a real familiar relationship where we insulate each other from all of that stuff and support and love each other through it.”
From eating disorders to cancer, read on for a look into some of the health challenges the cast of Full House has been through and how they have supported each other through the years.
Dave Coulier
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Dave Coulier played Joey, the fun family friend who could make you laugh with a corny joke, cartoon voice, or silly face, so when the actor revealed he was diagnosed with stage 3 non-Hodgkin lymphoma in November 2024, fans were devastated. His costars were publicly supportive of him, with John Stamos vowing to “be by [his] side through it all.”
Five months later, in March 2025, a representative for Coulier, 65, confirmed to PEOPLE that he was cancer-free. Candace Cameron Bure was quick to celebrate the happy news.
“DAVE IS CANCER FREE!!!!” the actress wrote, alongside a selfie was herself, Coulier and his wife Melissa. “Join me in celebrating this AMAZING news — let’s shower him with all the love in the world! ❤️❤️❤️.”
However, on December 2, Coulier revealed he had been diagnosed with 16 squamous carcinoma, a type of head and neck cancer, during a routine PET scan. Still, the actor shared he had a positive outlook as his prognosis was good and encouraged everyone to get their checkups.
“So it has a 90+ curability rate. But the thing that has really saved my life, Craig, is that early detection saved my life, not just the first time but the second time as well,” he told Today’s Craig Melvin. “So I hope you’re getting your check-ups. I hope your colonoscopies and breast exams and prostate exams, they will save your life.”
John Stamos
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In his 2024 memoir, If You Would Have Told Me, John Stamos got candid about his alcohol addiction. The actor who got a DUI in 2015, says he considered that moment his rock bottom.
“I had that DUI and I was like, ‘I can’t do this. I’ve got to straighten up,'” he recalled. “That’s when I was confusing the universe because I’m not a bad person, but I was doing crappy things.”
He went to rehab shortly after the arrest and though he admitted it “was dark for a little bit,” he noted it started to get better, given that he had much to look forward to, including filming Fuller House in 2016.
In 2019, Stamos presented costar Jodie Sweetin with an award for her work in advocacy for substance abuse recovery, and credited her with helping him achieve sobriety.
“Jodie lovingly allowed me to walk my own path and when I finally humbled myself to ask for your help, I realized that the perky little blabbermouth had become the master of wisdom and was right by my side during some of the most difficult days of my life,” he said, adding that she had set up 12 step meetings for him on the set to make it easier. “Thank God, my wife and my new son will only know me as a sober husband and father. This is Jodie’s legacy in my life.”
Candace Cameron Bure
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After Full House wrapped, Candace Cameron Bure found herself newlywed, in a new city and lonely. The actress, who had always been confident in her own skin, said she developed bulimia when she was 18, and began bingeing and purging meals.
“I sat lonely so many nights not knowing what to do with myself. But there was always one friend that was always there, that was so readily available anytime I wanted, and that for me was food,” she said during a #EatingRecoveryDay panel back in 2016.
“It became a very destructive relationship, and it was one that really caught me off guard,” she said. “I got into a cycle of binge eating and feeling such guilt and shame for that, that I would start purging. And without even knowing, it soon just took over to a point where you feel such a loss of control.”
Though she managed to get back on a healthy track, she recently admitted the thoughts are ever-present.
“I’m a bulimic. And I still say I’m a bulimic,” she said on her eponymous podcast. “Because the thoughts — whether I’m doing that or not — they never leave me. So I still need the tools to just say, ‘No, Candace, we’re not doing that.’“
Andrea Barber
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Andrea Barber played the always-chipper Kimmy Gibler, but life took an unexpected when she experienced postpartum depression following the birth of her second child.
Barber — who said she had always suffered from anxiety as a child, even throwing up before filming scenes of Full House — told Today Parents that she didn’t recognize signs of postpartum depression, given she didn’t go through it with her first kid.
“I knew something was significantly wrong because it started spiraling. It started with throwing up every day and not being able to sleep at night,” she told the outlet.
“Then I stopped eating except for maybe a banana a day and I lost a significant amount of weight. I eventually couldn’t get out of bed for several weeks and I couldn’t take care of my babies, which was another huge problem. That’s when I knew it was really bad.”
Luckily, Barber had a solid team of family, friends and experts to help her through it.
“My parents just took me under their wing. I called them one day at 5 in the morning and said, ‘I can’t stop the world from spinning, I can’t get up out of bed and I don’t know what to do.’ They moved me, my children and my husband into their home so that they could take care of me and the children,” she revealed.
“Slowly, with that support system, plus the medication, plus finding a therapist who I really jived with, all of these things are what brought me back to optimal health so I could function again.”
Jodie Sweetin
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Like her onscreen sister, Jodie Sweetin went through a rough patch following the ending of Full House, in her case struggling with substance abuse.
“There is a certain sense of loss when a series ends. It is kind of hard to figure out who you are when you’ve lost your job at age 13, when that was basically how you identified yourself,” she told Good Morning America.
She began experimenting with drugs and found herself addicted to meth. After a three-day “lost” weekend that spawned an intervention by Mary-Kate and Ashley, John Stamos and Bob Saget, Sweetin checked herself into the Promises rehab facility for six weeks of intense treatment.
Sweetin has also been candid about her alcohol addiction, revealing that the first time she blacked out was at Bure’s wedding.
“Well, the first time I ever drank, I was like 14… and it was at Candace’s wedding, and I was just a blackout drinker,” she said on an episode of Skinny Confidential Him & Her Show podcast.
“The last thing I remember doing I think is somewhere around the end — the YMCA and then I don’t remember anything from the rest of the night. and it was awful and it was ugly and it was embarrassing and my mother was horrified.”
Though her journey to sobriety has had its ups and downs, the woman who gave us spunky Stephanie Tanner says she’s in a better space now, telling Kail Lowry on the Barely Famous Podcast, “I had gone to treatment in my 20s, and then I had kids, and then I got sober, and then I drank again and then I got sober. It’s been up and down, but it’s been 16 years since I’ve drank alcohol and 13 years since I relapsed on meds with a car accident that I was in.”
Mary-Kate Olsen
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The Olsen twins, who played adorable Michelle Tanner, grew up to be a fiercely private pair, however, in 2004, news broke that Mary-Kate, then 18, had entered a treatment facility to seek help for an eating disorder.
“Mary-Kate Olsen recently entered a treatment facility to seek professional help for a health-related issue,” Michael Pagnotta, a spokesman for the twins, told PEOPLE at the time, adding that Ashley had stepped away from the press tour for New York Minute to support her sister. “She is thankful for the encouragement and support of her friends and family who are with her every step of the way.”
She returned home after six weeks of treatment and was said to be recovering well. In July 2024, Ashley told PEOPLE, “The support’s been really amazing. She’s taking the time she needs for herself … I’m here for her whenever she needs me, and, you know, that’s how it works.”
