Jodie Sweetin is enjoying a huge comeback in recent months, but the actress was brought to tears on Monday's Dancing With the Stars while discussing her tumultuous past.
It was the dancing competition show's famous "Most
Memorable Year" week, and in a pre-recorded package played before her
performance, the 34-year-old Fuller House actress opened up to her pro partner, Keo Motsepe, about the challenges she's faced.
"My most memorable year has been this past year of
my life," Sweetin said, opening up to Motsepe. "Getting to step back in
and find my dreams and the thing that I love again."
Sweetin got very candid about her struggle with substance abuse and how she fell into a "dark place" after Full House wrapped in 1995, when she was only 13 years old.
"It was a huge shift in my life. Everything I had
known from the time I was five years old suddenly ended and it was like
saying goodbye to a family I had loved very, very much," Sweetin
explained. "At such a young age it really was a huge loss for me [and] I
didn't know how to grieve."
"Drugs and alcohol just sort of numbed everything.
I was doing cocaine and ecstasy and alcohol and all of that," she
recounted. "The darkest moments for me weren't necessarily winding up in
the hospital or anything like that. It was those quiet moments alone
when I just hated the person I had become."
Now, Sweetin has been sober four five years and she said that her sobriety allows her to "be happy with simple things now."
A few of her Fuller House co-stars also sat down to talk about Sweetin's amazing comeback, including Lori Loughlin, who said the 34-year-old actress was "completely inspiring."
Comedian Bob Saget, who began working with Sweetin on the original Full House
when she was just 5 years old, praised her for being an amazing mother
to her two daughters, 7-year-old Zoie and 5-year-old Beatrix.
"She's a great mom because she's been through so
much, and with that comes honesty, and the more honest you are with your
kids the more you can be real with them," an emotional Saget shared. "I
think her biggest accomplishment is that she's just incredibly real.
And that's one of the things I love the most about her."
Speaking with Motsepe about her healthy progress,
Sweetin shared an emotional story about her mom. "I remember my mom
saying that when I was little, I had this light that shined really big,
and that she had watched my light become very dark," Sweetin recalled.
"And I just remember my mom saying to me, 'You're light shines again.'
So, through doing this dance, I get to shine again."
"I dimmed my light for a long time, and I don't feel I have to do that anymore," she added.
During her emotionally charged Foxtrot -- set to a
live performance of "Rise Up" by Andra Day -- Sweetin made sure to
shine, stepping out of the darkness and back into the light with a
powerful routine that left her beaming.
The dance also left the judges impressed as they
heaped praise on the star. Bruno Tonioli said it was Sweetin's "best
performance to date," while Carrie Ann Inaba called it "the most
inspiring performance of the night." Even Len Goodman said they did "a
wonderful job" of portraying the emotion through their movement.
With an 8 from Inaba, a 7 from Goodman and an 8
from Tonioli, Sweetin and Motsepe earned a score of 23, which is their
highest score of the season so far.
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