John Stamos has said surprisingly little about his old friend and co-star Lori Loughlin‘s big scandal. And now we have a better idea why.

Speaking about his Full House co-star on this week’s Armchair Expert podcast, he told host Dax Shepard that he’d just spoken to his onscreen wife — and that they were both appreciative of what he’d said on her behalf:

“You said some really nice stuff about her. We talked last night about you. It was something that you were saying about how you hate when people bring her up because if you defend her then people get mad. If you don’t defend her, then you feel bad because she’s a great person.”

Just because she’s a great person doesn’t mean she didn’t make a huge mistake.

Lori shocked the nation when she was arrested in 2019 as part of the wide-reaching college admissions scandal. She and fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli were just one of many sets of parents who participated in a scheme to bribe unscrupulous college faculty and standardized testing employees to get their kids into college. In Loughlin’s case, she faked her daughters’ involvement in rowing to get them admission into USC as athletes.

She became the face of the scandal for three big reasons: first, obviously, her fame. She was America’s Aunt Becky, one of the most wholesome characters in TV history. Second, unlike fellow TV star Felicity Huffman, Lori and her husband refused to plead guilty and accept responsibility for their crimes. They fought hard against the accusation despite the feds having a rock solid case. It made it harder to garner sympathy when she wouldn’t even apologize. Finally, there were her kids… Her daughters didn’t even want to go to college. Her youngest, Olivia Jade, was more interested in being a YouTube star and reportedly didn’t even show up to the classes. It added insult to injury knowing that not only had they taken the spots of more deserving kids, they were throwing them away.

But Stamos doesn’t think it’s fair for Lori to be synonymous with the scandal. He defended his old crush, saying:

“I am going to say this, and she said I could. She wasn’t really the architect of any of it — she was in the way background. She didn’t know what was going on.”

Obviously she didn’t know she was part of an enormous enterprise. But she knew she was lying and bribing. That she knew.

But his next point is really important as we move forward. He says Lori has not only done her time, she’s shown genuine remorse with her actions:

“She also paid a lot of money. She set up a college fund for kids. And she went to f**king jail, man!”

A college fund?? Yes, pretty quietly, a few months after she got out of prison — and not as part of her sentence — Lori donated $500,000 to pay the full tuition of two students into USC. As a gesture to try to pay her debt, it’s a pretty big one. That was after paying her legal fees and complete restitution. So he’s not wrong, she’s paid a LOT for her crimes.

What do YOU think, Perezcious readers? Do you agree with John? Is it time for America to move forward and forgive Aunt Becky?

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