John Stamos Reveals He Was a Victim of Sexual Abuse as a Child

Actor John Stamos has opened up for the first time about being a victim of sexual abuse when he was a child.

The revelations are included in Stamos’ upcoming memoir If You Would Have Told Me, out October 24. In an exclusive interview with People, published Wednesday, the actor admitted that as a child he was abused by a female babysitter, but he “packed it away…I think I was probably like 10 or 11 [when it happened]. I shouldn't have had to deal with those feelings [at such a young age]."

Stamos reflected that he always knew in his heart something about the situation wasn’t right, but he couldn’t bring himself to confront it until he began writing his memoir.

"I mean, I knew, it was always in the back, and I do so much advocacy for the [survivors]," he told People. "I felt like I remembered it slightly. It has always been there, but I packed it away as people do, right?"

Instead of reporting the abuse, the Full House star tried to rationalize it to himself. "I think I told myself, like, 'Ah, it's girls, man,'" Stamos reflected. "It was like you're playing dead so they'll stop. But it wasn't totally aggressive. I don't know, it was not good."

The memory initially resurfaced as Stamos was working on an acceptance speech for an award he was receiving for his work with abused children. However, he thought, “Tonight is not about me…I’m going to pack it away again until the right moment.”

That right moment turned out to be his memoir, though the actor says he didn’t want this memory to become the book’s defining revelation. "I didn't want the headlines to be that, and I didn't want the book to be over that," he explains. "It was a page or something, but I felt I had to talk about it. It was weird.”

If You Would Have Told Me is currently available for pre-order ahead of its October 24 release.