Candace Cameron Bure says Bob Saget was the first man she ever saw cry
Candace Cameron Bure is opening up about how her close friend and confidant, late comedian Bob Saget, showed her it was OK to be emotionally vulnerable.
In an interview with Hoda Kotb on TODAY Thursday, Bure, who was cast at age 10 as Saget’s TV daughter on the ABC sitcom “Full House,” explained that he was someone she could open up to on set.
"We were doing our pilot episode for 'Full House' and Bob is so tall," she said, noting Saget was 6 feet 4. "But he kneeled down to me and got eye to eye with me and he said, 'Hi. I’m Bob. And I’m gonna be your dad. I’m playing your dad. So I want you to feel comfortable. And we’re gonna be friends.'"
She added that Saget had always been "warm and inviting" to her as a kid, something that made her feel "instantly comfortable."
Bure explained that during their 35-year friendship, Saget had been someone she felt she could go to with anything.
"He was so emotionally available all the time. And he was really the first person in my life as a man that I saw cry and have those emotions right at the forefront of his conversations," she said. "I felt so safe with him.
"If you were hurting, he would hurt with you. You would see the tears well up in his eyes," she continued. "Bob is a remarkable person and I’ve never had a friendship like the one I’ve had with him. And that’s why it makes it so hard.”
This is her first interview since Saget's death, but Bure has been open about her devastation on social media. She previously wrote on Instagram that the late comedian was the "glue" that held their TV family together.
“We are all family, but you were the glue. The sticky, messy, squishy, sweet, lovable glue. My childhood is wrapped up in you, my formative teenaged years and the rest of adulthood,” she wrote on Jan. 11. “You taught me to feel deeply at such a young age. You were never afraid or ashamed to share your emotions, to cry, to love, to laugh and say it out loud.”
She echoed that sentiment in her interview that aired Thursday morning, adding that she "can't believe he's gone forever."
"My brain has not comprehended that yet. You know ... you might think, like, 'Oh, he played your dad on TV.' But Bob was so much more than that," she said. "So to think that he’s not here and we’re not gonna have that last, you know, a joke or another hug or just another bit of ridiculousness in life ... it’s almost unbearable for me to think about."