Lori Loughlin Reveals She Was Broke, Couldn’t Pay Rent Before Landing ‘Full House’

Lori Loughlin is looking back on her early days as an actress.

Loughlin, 62, appeared on the Tuesday, October 20, episode of the QVC+ HSN+ podcast Cart Blanche with John Battagliese, where she detailed a particularly tough year that saw her struggling to pay her rent.

“I was always very lucky, worked as an actor. Left the soap, did some movies, did some pilots that didn’t go, but kept myself busy. But there was one year that I didn’t… There wasn’t that much work. There were a couple of strikes that happened,” the Edge of Night alum recalled.

“And I just had depleted my finances. I paid my rent in California… and I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I’m going to make the rent next month.’ And I went to my agent, and I said, ‘I need a job. I paid my rent, and I don’t know what’s going to be next,'” Loughlin continued.

That’s when Loughlin’s luck struck again, with her agent informing her about a potential role on a show called Full House.

“He had papers on his desk, and he pulled something out and said, ‘This just came in. They called about you. Six episodes of this show called Full House. Would you be interested in that?'”

Loughlin, who was 23 at the time, ended up landing the gig, starring as the beloved Rebecca Donaldson, otherwise known as Aunt Becky, opposite John Stamos, on the family comedy, from 1988 through the series finale in 1995. She also returned for the Netflix sequel, Fuller House, in 2016, which ran on the streamer for five seasons. As Star previously reported, she was cut from the show after the fifth and final season, however, following her arrest in the college admissions scandal.

While the actress spent two months in prison in late 2020 after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud after she and her estranged husband, Mossimo Giannulli, paid $500,000 in bribes to falsely present their two daughters as crew team recruits for the University of Southern California, Loughlin has begun returning to the spotlight and recently reunited with her Full House family.

Loughlin appeared alongside the cast at 90s Con in Hartford, Connecticut, on Sunday, October 18, where she and her fellow castmates reflected on the legacy of the late Bob Saget, who died in January 2022 after suffering blunt head trauma following an accidental fall.

“Bob’s just glad we’re all still talking about him. Really, truly. Bob just loves to know that he’s still the main topic of conversation,” Jodie Sweetin, who played Saget’s daughter on the series, said, per People. “He is the best in ways, and yes, we love him.”