John Stamos revealed in a new podcast that he was almost a Scientologist, but he got kicked out for hanging around too much.
In one interview with famed impressionist Matt Friend for his podcast “Friend in High Places,” the actor recalled being kicked out of the organization as a teenager after just one meeting.
“I was in an acting class and there was a hot girl,” Stamos said. “She said, ‘You know, we’re all meeting at this address on Hollywood Boulevard. Come after [class]!’ I was working at my father’s restaurant at the time and I said, ‘Dad, I have to, I have to go.’ So I went. I was 16, 17.”
He went to the address, which he discovered was a Scientology building. Upon arrival, he was summoned to be tried by the E-meter, an instrument that measures the strength of a small electrical current passing through the body of the person undergoing auditing. A person undergoing the audit process through the instrument must hold up two metal cans. So, with cans in hand, the ‘Full House’ actor recalled how he just couldn’t resist the temptation to pull a prank on the group.
“You’re holding these two cans, so I started [saying]you know, ‘Hello…Peabody in the Wayback Machine!’” he said in a cartoonishly old-fashioned voice. “You know, Sherman and Peabody,” referring to the time-traveling “Rocky and Bullwinkle” characters.
Naturally, the Scientologists weren’t too happy with his foolishness.
“They didn’t like that,” he continued. “I was messing around so much that they said, ‘Go away. To get. To go.’ They just kind of kicked me out.”
Stamos previously discussed the incident in his 2023 memoir “If You Would Have Told Me.” In the memoir, Stamos recalled that a woman named Mia handed him a book “as big as a brick” after acting lessons. “I think it will open your eyes to some amazing things,” he recalled saying when she invited him to talk about the book the next day.
Watch the full interview below.