Full House besties still call each other 'D.J.' and 'Kimmy' in real life — and it threw off fellow former child star

The friendship between D.J. Tanner and Kimmy Gibbler is still going strong, nearly 40 years after audiences met the besties on ABC sitcom Full House.

Actresses Candace Cameron Bure and Andrea Barber, who played the characters for eight seasons and reprised their roles on Netflix revival Fuller House, which aired from 2016 to 2020, revealed recently that they still refer to each other by their character names.

"Does everyone know that we call each other Kimmy and D.J.?" Bure asked when she filled in for another former Full House-er, Jodie Sweetin, to cohost the rewatch show How Rude, Tanneritos with Barber.

"I don't know," Barber said. "If they don't, they do now: that we literally call each other that every time we see each other."

Bure agreed and recounted an actor from another TGIF show, Family Matters, being weirded out by the practice. "Do you remember when we were just at '90s Con?" she asked. "And Jaleel White, who, of course, played Urkel, was there and...he stopped in his tracks and he was like, 'Whoa, what? Did you for real just call each other your character names?'"

White was "tripped out," Bure continued. "It was weird. It was weird to him, but not to us."

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Barber agreed that it "threw him for a loop," but she said that they'd always done it.

The ’80s sitcom classic was about Danny Tanner (the late Bob Saget) moving in with his brother-in-law Jesse (John Stamos) and friend Joey (Dave Coulier) to raise his three young daughters, including D.J., Sweetin's Stephanie, and Michelle (played by future fashion designers Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen). Barber's Kimmy was almost a part of the family, so close that she and Stephanie often butted heads.

The cast is famously close and has often paid tribute to Saget, who died in 2022.

In the past month, his TV family has rallied around Coulier, who revealed in November that he's been diagnosed with a "very aggressive" cancer.

Listen to Barber and Bure reminisce on the episode of How Rude, Tanneritos above.