Lori Loughlin: Everyone Wants Me to Be Married to John Stamos

"I see how much people really want to believe that we existed," the actress tells PEOPLE of Full House lovebirds Jesse and Becky

By Rennie Dyball

Published on June 3, 2015 03:25 PM

Full House fans have always loved Uncle Jesse and Aunt Becky together – but even Becky herself can hardly believe the level of affection for the TV couple.

“It’s caught me off guard lately,” the actress, 50 – who has been married to designer Mossimo Giannulli for 16 years – told PEOPLE at her home in Beverly Hills earlier this month. “John and I had so much fun together, but even I am like, why are people so obsessed with these two?”

How obsessed are we talking? A dental technician once told the actress’s daughter Olivia how much she looked like Lori Loughlin. “Well, that is my mom,” Olivia told her, to which the technician replied, “Oh my God, I really wish she would have married John Stamos,” Loughlin recalls with a laugh. “And Olivia was like, ‘Does she realize what she just said to me?’ I see how much people really want to believe that we existed.”

So much so that Loughlin rarely includes pictures of Giannulli on her social media.

“I don’t post many pictures of my own husband on Instagram because every time I do, I get a bunch of comments saying, ‘You should have married John Stamos,’ ” she says, adding that Giannulli “commented on my Instagram, ‘I agree – she should have!’ ”

Loughlin currently stars on Hallmark Channel’s historical drama When Calls the Heart, which wraps its second season June 13. Close friends with Stamos since her beloved ’90s sitcom wrapped, the actress – who will return for a reunion episode on the spin-off Fuller House – calls the love for her and her TV husband “flattering. Maybe we represented some kind of idyllic couple.”

“As my daughters always say, ‘goals.’ Like Jesse and Becky are ‘goals.’ That’s nice.”

For exclusive, at-home photos with Loughlin and her daughters – and her response to Stamos calling her the one that got away – pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday