Mary-Kate Olsen Won’t Be On ‘Fuller House,’ But Michelle Tanner Reportedly Will

Mary-Kate Olsen and her sister Ashley have already said they won’t be appearing on Fuller House. It appears that despite the fact that Mary-Kate won’t have a presence on the Netflix original Full House follow-up, the character she and Ashley brought to life will be there in some way, shape, or form. This all comes from one of Mary-Kate Olsen’s former castmates, who is telling the media the creators of Fuller House have found a way to work around one of the main characters skipping out on the reunion show.

Sweetin made it clear that Michelle Tanner will not become “she who shall not be named.” Instead, the cast will have a workaround and will likely discuss the character as though she’s around but just not in the scene. This works better because all of the characters have obviously aged quite a bit since the original Full House series. Mary-Kate Olsen’s character could simply be living in a different town than the rest of the family in Fuller House.

Bob Saget, who said he wasn’t particularly surprised that Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen both decided against reprising their role, said he doesn’t think it would be worth the effort to recast the character. This makes sense, of course, when talking about a show that has brought back almost all of the original cast members. Having someone who fans of Fuller House know wasn’t in the original group would make that person stick out like a sore thumb.

Still, it will be interesting to see just how the show deals with the absence of Michelle Tanner considering the plot of this new show. Fuller House will center around the recently widowed DJ Tanner-Fuller who is having to care for her two young children while being pregnant with her third. In order to help take care of the kids, younger sister and aspiring musician Stephanie (Jodie Sweetin) and their former neighbor Kimmy Gibbler (Andrea Barber) move into her San Francisco home to help. John Stamos as Uncle Jessie, Lori Laughlin as Aunt Becky, and Dave Coulier as Uncle Joey are also all going to be making appearances throughout the 13-episode run along with Bob Saget as Danny Tanner.

This particular plot line will be interesting to navigate without Michelle Tanner. One has to wonder if she’ll be someone with whom the family has fallen out of favor. Whatever the plot device, it will be interesting to see how the show deals with no Mary-Kate Olsen among the cast.

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