Whatever Happened To Andrea Barber?
In 1987, a little show about a widower raising his three daughters with the help of his friend and brother-in-law premiered on ABC. While it took a little time to build momentum, by Season 2, “Full House” was a bona fide hit. Between eight seasons of the original show and five more seasons of its reboot, “Fuller House,” there’s plenty of Tannerito shenanigans to go around — and the eldest Tanner daughter’s BFF, Kimmy Gibbler, has always joined in on the family fun.
However, when the unexpected cancellation of the original series was announced in 1995, the actor who played the Tanners’ next-door neighbor took a step away from Hollywood. After spending nearly a decade on “Full House,” she was ready to move on from acting and eager to pursue a more conventional road. “I had a great experience as a child. I love the craft, I just don’t really like the business,” Andrea Barber told People in 2016. “The marketing of yourself, going out on auditions and the unpredictability of the profession is really hard on my family life. It’s just a really tough business.”
The cancellation of Full House was a big shock for the cast
When it was announced that “Full House” would finally come to a close after eight seasons, no one was more shocked than the cast. “We didn’t really know until three weeks before the end of Season 8 that ‘Full House’ was being canceled,” Andrea Barber recalled to Decider in 2020. “There was a lot of crying that last day and the last two weeks, in particular.”
Since the cancellation of the beloved TV series was fairly abrupt, the writers scrambled to put together an ending. “So that’s why you get the Michelle falls off a horse and gets amnesia storyline, because there was no time to write to the finale,” Barber explained.
After Full House, she traded casting calls for the classroom
After “Full House” was canceled, Andrea Barber had no interest in getting back to the Hollywood grind. “The auditions were always the worst part for me as a child actor,” she told People in 2017. “So I thought, ‘nope, I’ve found new passions in college.'”
In 1995, Barber traded in her casting calls for the classroom, putting all of her energy into her schoolwork at Whittier College. After she earned her English degree, she got her master’s in women’s studies at University of York, England. At one point, she even interned at the United Nations.
The Full House alum got married and became a stay-at-home mom
After working in Whittier College’s Office of International Programs for some time, Andrea Barber established a quiet, normal life that isn’t necessarily common in Hollywood. “I got married, I had kids, I stayed home with those kids, I was a stay-at-home mom when they were little babies,” Barber shared on Bob Saget’s podcast “Bob Saget’s Here For You.” “I wasn’t planning on returning to the business.”
Andrea Barber became a marathon runner
Around the same time Andrea Barber and her husband were going through their separation, the actor found a new love: running. “It was a coincidence I started running right around that the time that my marriage was falling apart, and it was the single best thing I could have done to get through my divorce,” she shared with People in 2016. “I just needed that time to be alone and to get out whatever I was feeling, to just pound it out through the pavement.”
She’s remained close with her Full House co-stars
Perhaps the most special bond that Barber has made, though, has been with the other child stars from the show. All these years later, her co-stars Candace Cameron Bure and Jodie Sweetin are still very much a part of her life. “We’re closer now than we were as kids just because of time and maturing…and having the perspective of an adult,” Barber told Women’s Running in 2016. “We realize that we share this bond from growing up on TV and a sound stage. It was a very unique childhood.”
