John Stamos, Lori Loughlin text exchange on college scandal

John Stamos was there for his TV wife after her most notorious scandal. 

In his explosive new memoir, “If You Would Have Told Me,” Stamos, 60, talks about his former “Full House” co-star (and on-screen wife) Lori Loughlin, 59, and her role in the infamous college admissions scandal.

Also known as the “Varsity Blues” scheme, the actress and her real-life husband, Mossimo Giannulli, pleaded guilty in May 2020 to bribing their daughters’ ways into the University of Southern California as fake rowing recruits.

After serving time in prison, Loughlin and Giannulli, 60, were released in December 2020 and April 2021, respectively. The entire saga landed dozens of wealthy parents and celebrities — such as Loughlin — in jail, and exposed a rigged higher-education system.

In his memoir, Stamos revealed what his private conversation with Loughlin was like during that time. 

“In March 2019, I get a strange text around 5:30 am from my good friend Roger Lodge,” Stamos wrote. 

“He asks if Lori is okay. I hit him back, ‘Why, what’s up?’ Something about a college scandal,” he wrote. “I started Googling, but there was very little I could find. I knew she was working in Canada, so I called to check on her.”

He said that she was strangely nonchalant about the brouhaha involving her daughters Olivia Jade Giannulli and Isabella “Bella” Giannulli.  

“ ‘Oh that, yeah, I’m not sure,’ she answers so casually as if I just asked her if Nicky and Alex finished all their vegetables,” he writes, referring to their fictional twin sons on “Full House.”

“‘I have seen some emails lately from lawyers to Moss, but I stay out of it.’ Before I can process her response, I notice an odd clicking sound on the phone line. When I asked her about it, she again adopts her laissez-faire tone, ‘Oh, they may be bugging my phone.’”

After ending the call, Stamos, who played Loughlin’s TV husband, Jesse Katsopolis, from 1987 to 1995 on “Full House,” saw that the story was making headlines. 

“I immediately text Lori, ‘Are you watching the news?’ ” he recalled in his book. “An FBI agent is announcing the largest college admissions scandal ever handled by the Department of Justice, involving bribes to prestigious colleges for falsified student acceptances. She asks, ‘What channel?’ I text back in all caps: ‘EVERY CHANNEL!’ ”

Loughlin ultimately served two months in jail, and was released in December 2020. 

Despite the controversy, Stamos maintained in his book that his former on-screen spouse is his friend, and he continues to admire her. 

“Lori Loughlin continues to be a cherished friend to this day. We’ve weathered storms together and stood by each other’s sides, despite life’s hurdles. We’ve seen each other at our worst,” he writes. 

“I’ve witnessed moments where giving up could’ve been the easiest way out for Lori. She could have shifted the blame and let her family, marriage, and life crumble. But she didn’t,” he added. “No matter how hard she was hit, how desperate everyone was to cancel her and throw her in with the pile of brutal criminals, she stood fast, protecting her daughters from the mud hurled at them day after day after day.”