Bob Saget led a double life, starring in family friendly programs while moonlighting as one of the bluest stand-ups out there. So, too, does his Full House co-star Dave Coulier have a skeleton in the closet, maybe: He’s long been the random target of an urban legend that he’s the inspiration for Alanis Morrisette’s scorched earth classic “You Oughta Know.” Coulier is well aware of this rumor, and over the years he’s sort-of-not-really said it might be about him. When another of his Full House colleagues dared to bring it up, he even had a joke at the ready so he could quickly change the subject.
Some of the Full House gang reunited once more at the second annual ’90s Con, where they reflected on the beloved/cringey family sitcom. At one point, Coulier wandered into a report done by Candace Cameron Bure. She may be the most conservative member of the cast, but even she couldn’t resist shocking Coulier with a joke about his alleged relationship history.
“I remember a good ‘90s song that may or may not have been written about you,” Cameron Bure jokingly told him.
Coulier made a faux-gasp that might have been at least a little real. But he knew how to deflect. “’You gotta keep ’em separated’ — is that it?” he replied, pivoting to The Offsprings’ contemporaneous “Come Out and Play.”
“You Oughta Know” has always been the ‘90s version of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” at least in the sense that it’s a poison pen letter to an unnamed old flame. Morissette has refused to confirm whether or not it’s about Joey Gladstone, telling Entertainment Weekly last year that “everyone can guess all they want,” adding, “I wasn’t writing ‘You Oughta Know’ for the sake of revenge, but I think revenge is really, really important in fantasy.”
As for the Coulier-Cameron Bure interview, it quickly recovered and the two soon descended into warm nostalgia. It was still pretty surprising seeing anyone, let alone Cameron Bure, joking about a rumor involving a song that goes into pretty explicit detail about a failed relationship that left at least one of them very raw. Then again, Cameron Bure has a history of getting into tiffs with her Full House fam.
You can watch the exchange over at Entertainment Weekly.