There’s no question that playing Stephanie Tanner on Full House was the role of a lifetime for Jodie Sweetin. The sitcom was a hit for eight seasons on ABC in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s and lived on in syndication for years after that — not to mention the fact that Sweetin got to reprise the character for the 2016 spinoff Fuller House. The actress knows she’ll be Stephanie Tanner forever, so one would think she makes quite a bit of money from that, right? Well, not so fast.
Honestly, with the way Full House played constantly on TV when I was growing up and has only continued to grow new fans over the decades, I picture Jodie Sweetin swimming Scrooge McDuck-style through piles and piles of cash. She painted a different picture, however, when asked about it on The McBride Rewind podcast, saying the Full House well has dried up:
I got a one-cent check the other day. No, there's no syndication anymore, because it's all on streaming. Who gets paid for that? Nobody gets paid for that.
How rude! The fact that the talent doesn’t benefit from fans streaming Full House with a Hulu subscription isn’t something that viewers typically give much thought to, but streaming residuals were definitely a hot topic during the SAG-AFTRA strikes in 2023. Abbott Elementary’s William Stanford Davis showed off his 5-cent check at the time, as Mandy Moore opened up about making 81 cents for This Is Us.
Article continues belowJodie Sweetin says people don’t realize how small that residual income is, or how inconsistent it was even when the dollar amount was higher. She said:
People [are] like, ‘Oh, but you get the residuals.’ You're like, ‘Well, I mean, maybe like the first run of syndication, like when it, you know.' Sure, in my 20s, there would be money, but not reliable. You don't know how much it's going to be or how often they're going to run the show. So, sometimes you're like, 'Oh, cool. That was nice.' And then sometimes you're like, 'All right, well, there's a nice dinner out.’
Jodie Sweetin, it turns out, is more like the rest of us than we may have thought, despite growing up in front of the cameras on a hit TV show. She continued:
You just kind of don't know. So, it's not something you can rely on. Like I always say, people think I live some extravagant life. I'm like, 'Honey, I drive my 2023 used Hyundai Sonata that I love. I rent my house. I have credit cards that are maxed out.' I live a normal life. And, yeah, there are moments when you're like, 'This is going well,' and there are times when you're like, 'I need a day job.'
Yikes. I honestly would have thought that role set her up for life. It’s disappointing to hear that not everybody has the same experience as the Friends stars who reportedly continue to make $20 million in residuals each year, especially when shows like Full House remain popular titles on streaming.
If you want to catch up with Stephanie Tanner, you can find Full House on Hulu or stream Fuller House with a Netflix subscription.
