Full House's Andrea Barber to Show 'Real Person Behind Kimmy Gibbler' in New Memoir
Hola, Tanneritos!
Andrea Barber — the actress behind the beloved Full House character Kimmy Gibler — talked to PEOPLE exclusively about her upcoming memoir Full Circle: From Hollywood to Real Life and Back Again. PEOPLE has the first look at the book’s cover!
The book, set to hit shelves in November, tackles Barber’s journey dealing with divorce, mental health and motherhood after leaving the small screen at the end of Full House in 1995 — and picks up with her return on Fuller House 30 years later.
“This memoir is my soul laid bare,” she tells PEOPLE. “It’s very honest and raw, and I share things that I’ve never shared publicly before.”
Full Circle delves into Barber’s experience as a star not fully comfortable in the spotlight. Her book explains why she decided to leave Hollywood after playing the Tanner family’s zany next-door neighbor and how she worked to find solace and build a family as a single mother.
Barber graduated from Whittier College, interned at the United Nations and even received her master’s degree in the United Kingdom after Full House’s finale.
“It was a pretty seamless transition for me. And I was ready,” the actress told PEOPLE about that experience in 2017. “I never looked back.”
During her time away from the small screen, though, the actress-turned-scholar dealt with anxiety and depression. She also learned to raise her children as a single mother after a sudden divorce following 12 years of marriage.
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“It was very difficult to relive those hard years,” she adds, explaining that she hopes writing about her mental health will help create a culture of “openness and acceptance.”
“Writing it all down on paper forced me to examine my life from a new perspective,” she says. “In that sense, it was very cathartic to write; it made me realize how far I’ve come in my 42 years of life.”
Full House fans can also expect some behind-the-scenes action in the new book — and learn some more about what it was like to be a child star in the 1990s.
“It’s full of sweet and funny memories of the early days of life on the set of Full House, as well as many stories about life on the Fuller House stage now, playing these same characters 30 years later,” she says.
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“Fans of Full(er) House will love reading the behind-the-scenes stories, but I hope they are also able to get to know the real person behind Kimmy Gibbler,” she adds.
Barber hopes that her book will help readers who struggle with anxiety and depression understand that “you are not alone.”
“This is my story of how I struggled and then accepted those aspects of myself that I hated for so long,” she says. “Only then was I able to release it and talk about it openly. My hope is that this creates an open dialogue for those of us who struggle with mental health.”
Full Circle: From Hollywood to Real Life and Back Again will be released in November 2019.
