Actress Jodie Sweetin, best known for playing Stephanie Tanner on the hit comedy “Full House,” said child stars who aren’t damaged by becoming famous all have one thing in common.
“When you see the kids that grew up in this business that turned out to be fairly normal, well-rounded people, they all have really normal parents, who didn’t want to be in the business themselves,” the 41-year-old actress told Today.
Sweetin starred in the series when she was just 5 years old after doing some commercial work in her hometown of Los Angeles. She went on to say how parents who were failed actors were too hard on their kids trying to make it in the business.
“They’re like, ‘I tried to be famous, but it didn’t work out, so now it’s your turn,’” Sweetin told the outlet, saying people have told her, “I had a kid because I wanted them to be famous.”
The actress also mentioned how child celebrities now have it “a lot rougher” due to social media, which didn’t exist when she first got famous.
“I can’t imagine being one of those kids on a big network show that gets all of the attention and all of the criticism. And people are worrying about who you’re dating, and what you look like,” Sweetin said.
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“When I was nine, I had teeth coming out of every direction,” she added. “I was very self-conscious of it at the time, and if that had been the thing that was getting made fun of online? That would have destroyed me.”
The “Full House” alum’s biological parents were both incarcerated at the time of her birth, which led to her being adopted by her aunt and uncle, Sam and Janice Sweetin, when she was 9 months old. Sweetin said her adoptive parents never pushed her to become famous and she survived being a child star rather well. But when “Full House” went off the air, the actress did struggle with addiction.
“It was a huge shift in my life. Everything I had known from the time I was 5 years old suddenly ended and it was like saying goodbye to a family I had loved very, very much,” Sweetin said in 2016. “At such a young age it really was a huge loss for me, I didn’t know how to grieve. Drugs and alcohol just sort of numbed everything.”
The celebrity has been sober since 2011. She’s now a mother of two and is a certified drug and alcohol counselor.