John Stamos spoke about his youth and his decisions on a podcast during the weekend. Appearing on the Friends in High Places podcast on Sunday, the 61-year-old said he joined the Church of Scientology at 17 but it didn’t last for very long.
“With me, I was in an acting class and there was a hot girl, [who] said to me, ‘You know we’re all meeting at this [place] on Hollywood Boulevard, you should come after [class]. I was working at my dad’s restaurant at the time and I said, ‘Dad I gotta go.’ So, I went and it was the Scientology building.”
Stamos said it wasn’t just that that made him join the Church of Scientology, but he also joined because he was a big fan of John Travolta, who was heavily involved in the church. Travolta joined the church in 1975.
“Seeing [Grease] was like, ‘I wanna be that. I wanted to be John Travolta, I still do. Well, minus the whatever it is that they do.”
Stamos also narrated a very interesting experience that he had at the church where he was introduced to machinery known as the “E-Meter” which was made out of two cans.
According to a description in the Church of Scientology website, the machine is an electropsychometer device that can indicate changes in emotional states to identify stored engrams and levels of spiritual distress.
Stamos said he then started fooling around with the machine pretending to have a phone conversation.
“I was doing a Peabody and Sherman [impression] and they didn’t like that. Then, I was just f__king around so much, they said, ‘Get out [and] get going.’ They just kicked me out.”
The podcast host, Matt Friend, then said to Stamos that he must have been too annoying to join the controversial group.
“That’s pretty bad. I must have been terrible,” Stamos replied.
This is not the first time Stamos has talked about his experience with the Church of Scientology. He wrote about it in his 2023 memoir, If You Would Have Told Me.
In the book, he speaks about workbooks he was asked to read, and he said that when he opened one chapter, he read about things like controlling the mind, controlling energy, controlling space and controlling time.
He said that although he found the book interesting, he found the venue of the Church to be “creepy as f—k”
He writes in his book, “[One man] begins to question me about committing crimes, asks if I have negative thoughts about Scientology or [founder] L. Ron Hubbard and probes into some strange sex inquiries. The Wayback Machine needle jumps in the corner, and Mia looks disappointed. Apparently, I’m not Scientology material.”
The Church of Scientology has not said anything with regard to Stamos’ claims in his book.