This bit of gossip trivia makes me feel old, but John Stamos and Rebecca Romijn have been divorced for 19 years. This is wild to me! I remember their courtship, marriage, and divorce like it was only five years ago. I’d accept eight as answer to account for those lost Covid years. Time, man, time. John and Rebecca were together for 10 years and married for five. They divorced in 2004. John has since remarried and now has a son, Billy, who is five. Rebecca went on to marry Jerry O’Connell and have two children with him.
If the summer was Celebrity Divorce Szn, then fall must be Celeb Memoir Szn because just like Britney Spears, Jada Pinkett Smith, Sir Patrick Stewart, Julia Fox, and Jill Duggar, Uncle Jesse is busy promoting his upcoming book, If You Would Have Told Me, which comes out on October 24. Part of the book is dedicated to his mental and emotional state in the aftermath of his divorce, and it is a doozy. Turns out, John felt a lot of feels in a very unhealthy way.
Walking on broken glass: “My first marriage was shattering to me. I was shattered for way too long, too,” Stamos, 60, exclusively tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “I mean, a year, okay, good. But it went on [for] years and years.” Stamos says it was “really difficult” to write the chapters centered around the pair’s former marriage, especially as he had to reflect on his feelings at the time.
His hate turned him to the dark side: “In my mind back then, she was the Devil, and I just hated her,” he admits. “I couldn’t believe how much I hated her, and it ruined my life. Looking back, and I talk about it [in the book], because it’s one of the steps in AA where the fourth step is you lay out all your grievances, everything that people did to you. I go like, ‘None.'”
Time shifted his perspective: But the Big Shot actor eventually recognized he had “some part” in his first marriage’s demise, saying, “You start thinking, it’s like, ‘Oh, she wasn’t the Devil. Maybe I was as much to blame as her.'” From his perspective, Stamos — who hasn’t seen Romijn since their joint meeting with their divorce attorneys — felt his now ex-wife “was trying to make it work because she cared” about him before they eventually split.
Her career was going way better than his was: “It was very public, and that was very painful. I didn’t write much about that, but it’s hard,” he says. “It was very much the opinion that she dumped me because her career was going great and mine wasn’t, and that’s humiliating. I don’t blame her for it. It was just the perception that people took, and maybe they weren’t wrong. She was doing great at that time and I wasn’t.”
He drank his blues away: “That’s when I really started to kind of drink a lot,” he recalls. “But without that, I never would’ve known what a real love is, and I would’ve never straightened up to get someone like Caitlin in my life.”
Stronger than yesterday: “If I didn’t go through all the things, all the heartache,” the Scream Queens alum says, “I wouldn’t be who I am today. That’s what I hope people take away from it.”
Whew, that’s a lot. It’s pretty heavy. I give John credit for saying all of that out loud and admitting that his reaction was extreme, unhealthy, and wrong. While it’s always kinda cringe to hear someone talk so openly about hating their ex that much, at a human level, I understand all of the emotions that John went through and wish that he had gotten help sooner so that he could have let it go a decade or so earlier than he actually did. John has also talked about his sobriety journey before, which is something I give him a lot of credit for as well. From what he has described in previous interviews, I am sure that his sobriety played a huge role in changing his mindset and helping him heal. It’s nice to hear that John is doing well now. I hope Rebecca is also living her best life now, too.
If you’re interested in reading If You Would Have Told Me, you can preorder it through Amazon.
photos credit: Avalon.red and via Instagram
Google “John Stamos Jane Magazine”.
I did. I’m actually shocked.
Is that the one in which he talks about tricking a very drunk young woman into thinking she was going to have sex with him and he let his buddy go in his place and the buddy ended up having sex with her.
Because yeah, John Stamos can go straight to hell.
@bluenailsbetty – was coming here to say the same thing. He can go to hell. He & his buddy committed a sexual assault & he brags about it now. He’s a POS.
Good grief. What is wrong with men? I googled and then I gagged.
I really hope this book promo severely backfires on him and his victims (because you just know he has victims) are emotionally able to come forward to finally name his crimes. He probably won’t be prosecuted but he can be shamed into Scott Baio level of irrelevancy.
I straightaway Googled it after your comment, and read that, what a POS he is!! Disgusting!!
Oh and I’m so old I remember the press they got when they divorced, he came across as a controlling and narcissistic jerk, sort of “how did my wife dare to leave me?” thing. She’s always been so gorgeous and I am glad she found a stable partner in her current husband.
He’s now married with someone who could be his daughter so that tracks with the rumours of him being an insecure idiot full of himself….
That’s what I remember also: he acted like an insecure bitch after that divorce and she kept out of the mud and sailed into a solid relationship with O’Connell.
Holy sh*t. I can’t believe he so willingly, confidently told that story. Good god. Maybe it’ll be in the book? (hahhaha I don’t really think so)(and it’s no where near funny, sorry)
Haha- I did google for that, and instead of a Jane link popping up as one of the top hits, a photo from an eBay listing for the magazine Stepping Out, with Stamos on the front in a shirtless Barvarian short/suspenders garment, with goth eyeliner and gel abounding, and the most Zoolander-esque pose possible.
I’m glad that extraordinarily unflattering photo got memorialized, and I’m also glad he said the above on the record and thanks to the internet, it will live forever. I don’t think it sounds as progressed as he thinks it does.
Also, god. Women’s agency for so threatening for men.
I should have but a warning on that, sorry.
I never heard about that until last week. It’s horrifying, and now I will never be able to think of anything but that when I see anything about him.
Holy Sh*te! I’ve never heard that before. That’s the real John Stamos, isn’t it? What a scab of a human being.
Romijn wanted kids and he didn’t. AT least that was the line at the time. She was devastated when they divorced. Now he has a kid with someone else and he is writing about her.
Exactly.
“Stamos and Romijn divorced in 2005 amid rumors that he wanted kids and she didn’t. ‘There is absolutely no truth to that,’ Romijn told People in 2008. ‘That [story] was completely made up. I desperately wanted kids.” (Romijn went on to have twin daughters with her second husband Jerry O’Connell).
She definitely wanted kids…just not with him. WYKYK. Trust that gut instinct, ladies.
Yep and I remember when he was pressuring her sexually. Like, he wanted full on swinging.
There are a lot of reasons they got a divorce but the bottom line is he wanted to control and degrade her. I was so happy she escaped him.
YES the swinging too! Man, he is such a creep. Sometimes when you get out of bad relationship you fall right into a relationship with someone who is the exact opposite and for a reason. She got stability, kindness, affection and true, equal partnership with Jerry–everything that Stamos denied her.
I didn’t scroll the comments in vain – I totally remember those swinging rumors! I always thought he was kind of a jerk but still followed him on social media because I thought he’d matured. Really disappointed that he aided and abetted a rape; now I can’t even enjoy admiring his beauty without thinking about that. Wow.
Yeah. I do feel for him as he’s a survivor of abuse and clearly was messed up and had an alcohol problem…but he should’ve done a lot more therapy before he wrote this memoir. I’m not loving the things he’s saying about Rebecca, who sounds like she’s been classy
I’m glad he is able to admit he was insecure about his wife’s success. It’s nuts as he has had a lot of success too, he just had a lull at the time. Sucks so many guys are like that!
He is the kind of guy that can’t date his own age because he’s too immature
What is that comment about him aiding and abetting a rape? I didn’t know about that
Kind of sounds like the anger bitterness hatred Brad Pitt is going through over Angelina Jolie divorcing him . ALAS he’s not learned any AA lessons that is because he’s not attended any to learn from
They were such a gorgeous couple and I was shocked when they split. Glad they have found love with other partners and hopefully they are all doing well.
What is it with men and their hang ups about a successful woman, and interpreting divores or brekups as being about that— clearly, a breakup is not just career-triggered. She probabyl didnt like his insecurity and his belief that he had to be doing good or better than her– and THEN she wanted to leave BECAUSE of how he took it.
Its surprising how unaware men are of themselves, until they are far too old, and then most men, remain unaware till they die.
He’s always been a huge and known narcissist, so that part in his biography tracks with who he’s always been.
Yep I said the same below. I can almost guarantee that’s what happened. Stamos and Romijn used to be on Howard Stern a lot back in the day and you could tell that this was always an issue, despite him insisting that he was more excited for her than she was, which….though doth protest too much, dude.
*thou ugh.
Your last line took me out, pure perfection
His current wife is 23 years younger than him (she’s 37, he’s 60). I’m not sure what kind of “healing” he did after divorcing Rebecca but it sounds like he had to date out of his age bracket because not only did he maybe want kids, but no woman his age would put up with his BS. I wouldn’t be surprised if Caitlin divorces him as he gets older/more infirm. She really want to take care of a child and an aging husband at the same time? It’s exactly the situation Bruce Willis’s wife finds herself in too which is also very heartbreaking but she luckily has the support of Bruce’s adult children and Demi Moore.
The kids rumor was started by a “source close to the couple” which is always dubious at best. The official statement from her camp was that nothing was “There’s no third party. There’s no real reason except they’ve decided to go in separate directions.”
After that, Stamos repeated the “she didn’t want kids” narrative every chance he had so I think it’s safe to assume this is what he wanted put out there. My guess is that she was more successful than him and that made him insecure. I mean, you can even tell by his comments here about being “humiliated”–seems like he just couldn’t be happy for her success. She was very young when they got married, had a hot career at the time and probably didn’t want to deal with the burden of caring for a man-baby, much less having kids with one.
Sounds like she was able to move on for a better healthier relationship, good for her! She looks so pretty in that picture with her ex, I’d love it if more natural looks became popular again. (I know plastic surgery in Hollywood has been a thing since long before Botox and fillers.)
I remember he was falling down drunk in interviews. He’s a charmer that one, Howard Stern was interviewing him once and he turned to Robin Quivers and said ‘we should f*ck’ She turned him down.
Exhibit A of a smarmy, oleaginous, entitled man-baby, who thinks he’s all that and a bag of chips. He can FRO! Nasty sex pest!
I’m not a native English speaker but shouldn’t it be ‘If you had told me’? I remember being taught that if and would are never in the same part of a conditional sentence. Or is this an old rule?! I probably learned it 35 years ago..
In any case, I hope Rebecca lives her best life.
Non native speaker and my first thought was the same. Should be “If you had told me”.
But then… the latest here in the UK is to say “should of” instead of “should have”. This only by native speakers, of course. Drives me crazy.
Didn’t he cheat on her?
AA doesn’t tell you:
“because it’s one of the steps in AA where the fourth step is you lay out all your grievances, everything that people did to you.”
That’s ass backwards. The 4th step of AA is the opposite: Step 4 of Alcoholics Anonymous encourages one to make, “A searching and fearless moral inventory” of *themselves*
He’s got a loooooong way to go apparently.
Good grief! I’m glad I came back and read the comments. Thank you everyone bc I had no idea he was such a horrible person! I hope karma hits him hard!
This is why I love this site bc you can learn so much! Thanks @Kaiser !