John Stamos Says He Was Sexually Abused by a Babysitter

John Stamos is opening up about suffering sexual abuse as a child at the hands of a former babysitter. The Full House actor, 60, recounts the abuse in his upcoming memoir, If You Would Have Told Me, debuting Oct. 24, telling PEOPLE that it took him writing a book to realize that his former babysitter's actions were harmful, despite it being "always in the back" of his mind. 

"I felt like, I remembered it slightly. It has always been there, but I packed it away as people do, right?" he told the outlet, revealing that at the time of the abuse, he didn't tell anyone that it was happening. "I think I told myself, like, 'Ah, it's girls, man,'" he said. "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."

Stamos first realized the extent of his experience while writing an acceptance speech before receiving an award for his advocacy for abused children. I started to write it, and that's when it really came out," he shared. "And then I thought, 'No, tonight is not about me. It's about the kids. I'm going to pack it away again until the right moment,'" he continues. "Otherwise, I'm a phony f-. It's like, 'Come on.'"

Stamos was concerned about making the attention shift in his direction. "I didn't want the headlines to be that, and I didn't want the book to be over that," he explained. "It was a page or something, but I felt I had to talk about it. It was weird. It was something that, I think, I was probably like 10 or 11 [when it happened]. I shouldn't have had to deal with those feelings."

Now that the Big Shot actor is a father, having welcomed 5-year-old son Billy in April 2018 with wife Caitlin McHugh Stamos, his views have shifted. "But I'll tell you, if I found out someone was doing that to my son," he said, "that's a totally different story." Stamos' memoir, If You Would Have Told Me, debuts on Oct. 24.

If you or someone you know has been sexually assaulted, you can contact the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) or go to rainn.org.