John Stamos Had Olsen Twins Fired From ‘Full House’ As Babies For Crying Too Much

April 26, 2023
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John Stamos admitted having no mercy for then-11-month-old twins Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen on the set of “Full House.”

“Good Guys” podcast co-host Josh Peck asked Stamos on Monday’s episode to verify an “interesting” tidbit in a 2019 Collider post.

“Did you try to get the Olsen twins fired?” Peck asked skeptically.

“I did it,” Stamos confirmed. “I didn’t try, I did it.”

It happened during filming for the ABC sitcom’s pilot episode, in a scene in which a clueless Jesse (Stamos) and Joey (Dave Coulier) are changing baby Michelle’s (Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen) diaper.

“So, we’re carrying the baby downstairs, and I think I was holding her on her armpits and Dave was holding her little feet,” Stamos began, describing what sounds like an optimal situation for a baby. “And we take her in the kitchen and we hose her down.”

Jesse and Joey also attempt to dry off Michelle with a fan and “wrapped her up in paper towels,” Stamos noted, and suddenly the baby situation becomes suboptimal.

The scene from the pilot episode, in which Mary Kate or Ashely Olsen does indeed look displeased to be wrapped in paper towels and dangled over a kitchen sink.
The scene from the pilot episode, in which Mary Kate or Ashely Olsen does indeed look displeased to be wrapped in paper towels and dangled over a kitchen sink.

ABC Photo Archives via Getty Images

Unsurprisingly, the Olsens weren’t loving it.

“She was screaming. Both of them,” Stamos said, noting that the crew kept switching the twins in hopes that at least one of them would calm down.

“They wanted to be anywhere else but there, and so did I,” Stamos said.

“I couldn’t deal with it” anymore,” he continued.

“I said, ‘This is not gonna work, guys’ and I screamed it 10 times. I said, ‘Get rid of them, I can’t work like this.’”

So, the Olsen twins were temporarily replaced by “two redheaded kids” who Stamos described as “terrible.” He went on to criticize these babies’ appearance.

“It had nothing to do with [them being] redheaded, but they weren’t attractive,” Stamos said.

The blonde and possibly cuter Olsen twins were rehired “only a few days” later, according to Stamos.

Stamos said bringing back the Olsens was the right call, and noted that “they were so great” when they got a little older.

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js1ahc4OZbM?rel=0&start=1809&enablejsapi=1]

This is not the first time Stamos has spoken about getting two babies axed from the sitcom for acting like babies.

In 2015, he made the revelation at the Television Critics Association’s press tour — and slammed the Olsens’ replacements again. (Babies need to look good. We got it, dude.)

“It’s sort of true that the Olsen twins cried a lot,” Stamos said at the time, according to People. “It was very difficult to get the shot. So I [said], ‘Get them out … !’ That is actually 100 percent accurate. They brought in a couple of unattractive redheaded kids. We tried that for a while and that didn’t work. [Producers] were like, all right, get the Olsen twins back. And that’s the story.”

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen with their sister, actor Elizabeth Olsen (center) in 2016.
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen with their sister, actor Elizabeth Olsen (center) in 2016.

Jamie McCarthy via Getty Images

Peck, a former child star himself, interjected some sarcasm during Stamos’ story, saying it was ”almost like kids shouldn’t act, almost like we should protect them from these things.”

“Well, they did OK,” Stamos said in response.

The Olsen twins eventually became huge child stars, and went on to roles in a series of beloved children’s movies in the ’90s, including 1995’s “It Takes Two” and 2003’s “The Challenge.”

They retired from acting in the 2010s to focus on their now very successful fashion line, The Row, which they launched in 2006.

The sisters are so adverse from acting now that they turned down the opportunity to appear in Netflix’s “Full House” reboot, “Fuller House,” in 2016.

It seems that “Fuller House” was so desperate to get an Olsen on its show that Stamos told Andy Cohen in 2016 the producers tried to get their sister, actor Elizabeth Olsen, to play Michelle in the reboot.

“I don’t think this has been talked about. I didn’t do it, I think [executive producer] Jeff Franklin did. I said, ‘Call the sister. Ask her.’ We talked to her agent and her agent was like, ‘Come on, she’s not going to do that.’ But we did call her agent.”

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