Lori Loughlin recounts emotional reaction to Bob Saget’s death: ‘It’s surreal’

It’s now been more than two years since Bob Saget’s tragic death but yet for some of his close friends and colleagues January 9, 2022 is still hard to comprehend.

Lori Loughlin, 59, who was both his friend and his Full House co-star, was devastated upon hearing the news of his passing, which she didn’t learn immediately because she had been out golfing with husband Mossimo Giannulli that day.

During an appearance on the How Rude, Tanneritos! podcast with Jodie Sweetin and Andrea Barber, Loughlin recalled the moment when she noticed she had dozens of missed calls on her phone. 

‘As I’m looking at my phone, I have like 25 missed phone calls from John [Stamos]. I have like 15 missed phone calls from Dave [Coulier],’ she said of her Full House co-stars, before adding that another cast member, Candace Cameron Bure, had also called her while she was enjoying herself on the golf links. 

‘I just fell to my knees,’ Loughlin remembered of her physical reaction to the news of Saget’s death while on the eighth hole of Lake View Country Club. ‘I just remember [Mossimo] trying to pick me up and get me out to the car, to the parking lot.’ 

Lori Loughlin, 59, recalled the day she learned of Bob Saget’s death during an appearance on the How Rude, Tanneritos! podcast with Jodie Sweetin and Andrea Barber

Loughlin confessed to her onscreen niece during the podcast that she was in absolute disbelief over the news.

‘I was playing golf. It was a Sunday, and I was with [husband Mossimo Giannulli] and we just came off the golf course and I had my phone in my bag,” Loughlin recalled of that day.

‘I couldn’t imagine what was going on,’ she continued. ‘My phone rang in my hand, and it was Jodie,’ who was on the other end to tell her that Saget was ‘gone.’ 

Thinking of all the times they shared together both on the set of Full House and in their private lives as friends, Loughlin still grapples with the loss.

‘I still can’t believe it. I still can’t believe it,’ she told Sweetin, who played Saget’s daughter on the classic hit sitcom, as reported by People. ‘It’s still hard to believe … it’s such a loss. You somehow still think, “Oh, maybe he’ll come back.” It’s just hard to believe.’

The beloved comedian and actor, 65, was found dead in his room at the Ritz-Carlton in Williamsburg near Orange County, Florida around 4 p.m. ET that January day in 2022.

He had just performed his stand-up show in Ponte Vedra Beach the previous evening and seemingly had not left his room since going to sleep for the night.

An autopsy report released a month after his passing found that Saget had suffered blunt head trauma to the back of his head most likely from an unwitnessed fall that set off a subdural hematoma in his sleep.

It turns out another Full House alum, John Stamos, who was very close with Saget, had a similar reaction as Loughlin when learning of his passing. 

The 1980s heartthrob, now 60, was driving with his then five-year-old son Billy when his publicist Matt Polk called to ask if he had heard from the Grammy-nominated comedian after TMZ claimed ‘several sources’ said he was dead. 

Loughlin says she was playing golf with her husband Mossimo Giannulli when she pulled out her phone are realized she had dozens of missed calls the day of Saget’s death; seen in 2015

‘I just fell to my knees,’ Loughlin remembered of her reaction to the news of Saget’s death. ‘I just remember [Mossimo] trying to pick me up and get me out to the car, to the parking lot’; Lori and Bob pictured in 1990

Loughlin also rehashed some old Full House memories; the cast included Jodie Sweetin, Bob Saget, Mary Kate/Ashley Olsen, Candace Cameron, Lori Loughlin and John Stamos

Stamos was over-the-moon happy when he got to introduce his son Billy, now six, to Bob and Lori in 2018

Stamos revealed he also fell to his knees in a parking lot when he learned of Saget’s death

Full House co-star Candace Cameron Bure then reached out after receiving a ‘weird DM’ about his death, and that’s when Saget’s wife Kelly Rizzo confirmed the tragic news to Stamos in a phone call.

‘When I switch callers over to Kelly, all I hear is a wailing scream. I hit the ground in the parking lot and my knees slam down on the asphalt. “Noooooooo!”‘ the two-time Primetime Emmy nominee wrote in his memoir, If You Would Have Told Me (2023).

Not long after the initial impact of his death passed Stamos recalled a phrase his good pal, Bob Saget, used to tell him over the course of their friendship. 

‘I learned from Bob [that] tomorrow’s not promised,’ Stamos wrote. ‘Live every moment to the fullest and tell everybody that you care about them.’

Loughlin joined Full House for season two in 1988, and would be with the show until its finale after season eight in May 1995.