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John Stamos teared up as he talked about fatherhood during an emotional speech Thursday at The Creative Coalition’s 12th Annual TV Humanitarian Awards.
Stamos has been an advocate with the child abuse treatment and prevention
organization Childhelp for almost 40 years, but the meaning of his advocacy changed for him when he became a father for the first time eight years ago when his wife Caitlin McHugh gave birth to their son Billy.
“Becoming a father has changed the way that I see children,” the “Full House” star said, choking up. “You look at your own kid and you realize how much they depend on us to make them feel safe and loved and protected, and then you realize there are so many children that don’t have that. Once you really let that in, it’s hard to look away.”
Stamos’s best friend, comedian Jeffrey Ross, presented him with the Creative Coalition award.
“Every portion of my life, I’ve been given a career and a platform more attention than any grown man who played Uncle Jesse deserves,” Stamos said. “So if I can take a little of that attention and point it toward children who need us, this feels less like charity and more like responsibility.”
Earlier in the evening, on the red carpet, Stamos spoke about the upcoming release of “Love From Above,” a children’s book he wrote with Billy. The book, with watercolor paintings from Stamos, chronicles grappling with the loss of John’s parents and feeling their presence in the form of hummingbirds.
“We have this folklore in our family, when my father passed away, there was a hummingbird in my dad’s garden, [Billy] said ‘There’s your dad,’” Stamos told Variety. “I’m like ‘That’s a hummingbird.’ He said, ‘No, that’s your dad coming back to make sure we’re taking care of his garden.’ And so it’s been stuck in our family.”
The book will be released April 20, 2027.
“Billy’s been very busy, taking it very seriously, it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” Stamos said. “We’re excited to go out and read it to kids, we’re excited to go to hospitals where we can, schools. Hopefully it’ll help kids who have maybe lost their grandparents.”
Also honored at the event, which was hosted by Variety’s Marc Malkin, were Simran Baidwan (executive producer and writer for “The Pitt”), Famke Janssen (“X-Men”), Cara Buono (“Stranger Things”), Lisa Ann Walter (“Abbott Elementary”) and Mary Lou Belli (director of “The Ms. Pat Show”).
Baidwan’s award was presented to her by “The Pitt” fan-favorite Patrick Ball, also known as Dr. Langdon.
“On ‘The Pitt,’ she helped bring something particularly important out of the shadows: family caregiving,” Ball said. “Millions of people are caregivers. I know a few of them. Although many of them would never call themselves that. They’re just the ones who show up … Simran understood that these lives, these quiet daily acts of devotion and exhaustion and sacrifice and grace, these lives deserve to be seen and they deserve to be celebrated.”
Baidwan said, “The tireless work and sacrifices of caregivers affect everyday Americans everywhere and by highlighting their journeys to a story, perhaps we can help restore a little hope in humanity along the way.”
Like Baidwan, Walter has been recognizing and participating in small but important acts of service for as long as she can remember. Her co-star and close friend Sheryl Lee Ralph presented the award, sharing how Walter was marching against the Vietnam War at age six and fighting for women’s equality at age eight and has shown up ever since.
“I don’t advocate for reproductive rights because I’m the owner of a reproductive system,” Walter said. “I was an advocate for gender equity because anything else, even as a child, seemed to me to be stupid and unfair.”
Belli, who received the award from Scott Bakula, expressed her gratitude for her decades of service and mentorship to young filmmakers being noticed.
“When I found out I was getting this award, I literally wept,” Belli said. “And two weeks before that, I found out I would have been nominated for my fourth Emmy and I had none of that reaction to that.”
See more photos from the TV Humanitarian Awards below.
