Laughter is the best medicine. Jodie Sweetin recalled the touching lesson that Bob Saget taught her about dealing with loss.
“The thing that I keep remembering and I keep saying is that Bob — he suffered so much loss in his life. His sisters and other siblings that passed before he was born and his parents, there was a lot of loss in Bob’s life,” the Full House alum, 40, recalled during an interview with Entertainment Tonight on Monday, February 7. “But he walked through it with humor. … One of the things I just remember him trying to joke and laugh and make those inappropriate jokes at some of the darker things because … otherwise, how do you deal with it? How do you process it?”
She continued: “It weighs down on you and that’s something that I will always remember and that I find I do now is I deal with things through laughter.”
Since Saget’s death, Sweetin has been reflecting on her lifelong connection with the late comedian and the impact he had on her life. “When someone passes, all the sudden you think about all the things that you’ve learned from them and how important they’ve been,” the Fuller House star said. “And I just realized so much of his genuineness and his kindness and his ability to help others really impacted me.”
Saget was found dead at the age of 65 in his Orlando, Florida, hotel room on January 9. He was laid to rest less than one week later during a funeral attended by his family, Sweetin and her former castmates. “It was a beautiful service,” the Dancing With the Stars alum said about the emotional day, which included John Stamos, Dave Coulier and Candace Cameron Bure.
“I didn’t get up to speak at his funeral, that was for, obviously, his wife and his children, but we all sat around telling jokes,” she recalled, adding that Saget’s friends shared stories about the late comedian. “All these guys celebrating Bob by sitting around and laughing and telling stories, I think was really the greatest gift and send-off that we could’ve given him.”
Following the service, the loved ones of the former America’s Funniest Home Videos host gathered for a “rock and roll shiva” hosted by Jeff Ross. “We laughed and cried for four hours,” the Roast Battle host, 56, wrote on Instagram at the time. Sweetin attended the event, alongside Stamos, 58, and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen.
Ross concluded by encouraging fans to donate to the Scleroderma Research Foundation in his honor. “If Bob ever made you smile and you have it in your heart or wallet please donate,” he wrote. “It’s a terrible disease that mostly affects women. Finding a cure is a mission that meant a lot to Bob personally.”