In a recent podcast episode of “Friend in High Places” with celebrity impressionist Matt Friend, actor John Stamos shared a surprising and humorous anecdote from his teenage years. Stamos revealed that he was nearly involved with Scientology but was expelled after just one meeting due to his antics.
Stamos, then a young aspiring actor, was invited to a Scientology meeting by a girl he fancied. “I was 16 or 17,” he recalled. “She said, ‘You know, we’re all meeting at this address on Hollywood Boulevard. Come after [class]!’ I was working at my dad’s restaurant at the time, and I said, ‘Dad, I gotta go.’ So I went.”
Upon arrival, Stamos discovered he was at a Scientology building and was soon called up for an E-meter test, a device used in Scientology auditing. With metallic cans in hand, Stamos couldn’t resist making jokes. “I started saying, ‘Hello… Peabody in the Wayback Machine!’ in a cartoonish voice,” he explained, referencing the time-traveling characters from “Rocky and Bullwinkle.”
The Scientologists were not amused by his playful behavior. “They didn’t like that,” Stamos said. “I was just fucking around so much that they said, ‘Get out. Get. Go.’ They just kinda kicked me out.”
Stamos had previously touched on this incident in his 2023 memoir, “If You Would Have Told Me.” In the book, he describes being handed a large book by a woman named Mia, who hoped it would open his eyes to “amazing things.”
To hear more about this amusing story and other insights from Stamos, watch the full interview below.
