Jerry O’Connell is breaking down wife Rebecca Romijn’s reaction to John Stamos detailing their past relationship in his candid memoir, If You Would Have Told Me.
“Getting back to Rebecca Romijn and John Stamos’ relationship, my wife was very upset that John Stamos wrote a memoir — which was riveting. It’s terrific. I’m sure you can get it. But there was a chapter about the demise of their marriage,” O’Connell, 52, said on the Monday, July 20, episode of SiriusXM’s “Let’s Talk Off Camera With Kelly Ripa” podcast.
He continued, “And it really upset my wife that he put that in there. Now, if you’re gonna write a memoir and you’re John Stamos, you gotta put that in there, you know?”
Host Kelly Ripa chimed in to note that “people wanna read about that part.”
“Did he send her the chapter involving her before the book came out?” Ripa, 55, asked, to which O’Connell coyly replied, “That’s up to my wife to tell you. I don’t believe he did but that’s up to my wife to tell you if my wife had a heads-up. I don’t believe my wife had a heads-up.”
The actor shed more light on the subject after he and Stamos, 62, saw each other at Howie Mandel‘s birthday party in November.
“John Stamos was at this party and I was like, ‘I got to make a beeline for [him]…I got to go extend my hand,'” O’Connell told Andy Cohen on Radio Andy in June, revealing there didn’t seem to be any lingering tension. “I said, ‘Hey man, how are you? It’s so good to see you.'”
Stamos and Romijn, now 53, began dating in 1994 before getting engaged three years later. The couple tied the knot in 1998, but had tensions in their marriage — at least, according to Stamos’ 2023 memoir.
“As I’m lifting Rebecca up, I’m losing myself,” Stamos wrote, claiming there were “toxic friends” in Romijn’s circle who had a strong influence. “She makes it clear that I’m the TV guy and she’s the newly minted star. … Somewhere deep inside, I start to believe it.”
Stamos recalled facing “ups and downs” during their marriage, noting that they had “zero talk about having kids and starting a family” despite that “always” being their plan. In his perspective, Romijn was too “busy with her career and new friends” to notice that Stamos was “slipping away.” He went on to hint at “something cruel and calculating” infiltrating their once “pleasant” relationship.
“She smiles at me a little less, doesn’t look me in the eyes over dinner, takes phone calls in the other room. … Betrayal starts as a sinking feeling in your stomach, grows into a suspicion that clouds your every thought, and by the time you find out the truth, it’s uniquely horrible at first but also expected, like you’ve been waiting for something bad to happen,” he wrote. “There’s nothing more to say. There’s a point of no return, and what felt like a phase is now her phasing me out for good.”
Stamos and Romijn quietly separated in 2003, going public with their split the following year. He filed for divorce in 2004 and the proceedings were finalized one year later. (A rep for the exes previously denied cheating played a role in their breakup.)
Romijn moved on with O’Connell, whom she wed in 2007. The couple welcomed twins Dolly and Charlie in 2008. Stamos, for his part, has since wed Caitlin McHugh, and the pair share son Billy, 8.
After Stamos’ book release, Romijn broke her silence on seeing their relationship fallout described within the pages.
“I was very surprised by all of that, incredibly shocked actually,” Romijn told Entertainment Tonight in 2024. “I was sort of blindsided by it. But you know, I don’t really want to help him sell his books based on those headlines. So that’s all I really want to say about it.”
