It’s been 25 whirlwind years since Jodie Sweetin got her start on “Full House” as the precocious Stephanie Tanner.
Now a proud mother of two, the actress – who turns 30 on Thursday – is happy, healthy and back on track on the eve of her three-decade mark after facing a few derailments in recent years.
The trouble started early on following Jodie’s eight-year run on “Full House.” While attending Southern California’s Chapman University, the actress married LAPD officer Shaun Holguin in 2002.
Two years later, during a break from acting, Jodie experimented with crystal meth and rapidly developed a crippling habit – which she openly discussed in her 2009 tell-all memoir, “UnSweetined.”
“I wanted to prove that I wasn’t the girl from ‘Full House,’ that I could get more trashed than everyone else,” she writes in her book of what drove her to abuse drugs and alcohol.
Jodie successfully kept the addiction from her husband until 2005, when she was hospitalized following a night of partying.
After a stint in rehab, she and Shaun divorced in 2006.
Jodie met her next beau, Cody Herpin, while she was in sober living with people from her rehab center and the two began dating.
They married in July 2007 (after just two months of dating), and Jodie gave birth to her first child, daughter Zoie, via C-Section in April 2008.
Sadly, the new parents’ happiness was short-lived, as Jodie filed for legal separation from her then-husband in November 2008 — just seven short months after their daughter’s arrival.
The divorce documents revealed a rocky union between the pair.
“Our house is in foreclosure, our water has been shut off twice… Currently, all of our other utilities are overdue,” Jodie alleged in the court papers obtained by Access Hollywood at the time.
Jodie claimed that Cody, who she stated was a driver and transportation coordinator when they met, stopped working after they were married except for the month of October 2007, and “kept finding one excuse after another for his failure to even attempt to find employment.”
The contentious situation took a turn for the worse in December 2008, when a judge ruled that Jodie could only see her then 8-month-old daughter when she was at her parents’ home or in their presence, after Cody raised questions about Jodie’s sobriety during an emergency court hearing, alleging his estranged wife had fallen off of the wagon.
Nearly one year later, Jodie spoke with Access Hollywood about her battles with drugs and alcohol, and multiple stints in rehab, comparing her struggles with those of Lindsay Lohan.
“I’ve done that,” Jodie told Access during a November 2009 interview when asked about Lindsay’s highly-publicized hardships. “I’ve gone through [rehab] a couple times and I’ve gotten sober and not sober and sober and not sober and… The saddest thing is knowing that there’s nothing anybody can do until that person’s ready. You can’t save anybody. They have to do it themselves… That’s exactly the person that I used to be.”
After finalizing her divorce with Cody in April 2010, the actress found love with Morty Coyle, a DJ, and became pregnant for the second time, announcing the happy news in May 2010.
Morty and Jodie welcomed daughter Beatrix Carlin Sweetin Coyle on August 31, 2010.
“Jodie was amazing and is doing great,” Morty said at the time. “We’re already madly in love with Beatrix and are so grateful for the support from our family and friends. And we can’t wait for her big sister Zoie to meet her.”
Jodie’s 29th birthday ushered in another blessing – an engagement.
Morty proposed to his now-fiancee at her birthday party last year with a 2.5-carat sapphire ring, surrounded by 18 diamonds.
The pair is happily enjoying their engagement, and has no plans to rush to the altar.
“We’re big supporters of marriage equality,” Jodie told Access in February 2011. “So until everybody has the right to do this, we’re gonna hold off on [getting married].”
Copyright © 2024 by NBC Universal, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be republished, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.