John Stamos has said he was “disappointed” to learn Bob Saget would not be included in the Tony Awards’s In Memoriam segment this year.
The 2022 Tony Awards were presented live at Radio City Music Hall in New York on Sunday (12 June). The 75th awards ceremony was hosted by West Side Story star Ariana DeBose.
At the event, Michael R Jackson’s A Strange Loop won the prize for Best Musical, while Stefano Massini’s The Lehman Trilogy took home the award for Best Play.
Prior to the ceremony, Stamos tweeted that he had learned Saget would be “left out” of the award ceremony’s tribute portion, which honoured late theatre actors, producers and directors such as Stephen Sondheim, Joan Didion, William Hurt, Sidney Poitier, Peter Scolari and Robert Morse.
Saget was found dead in a hotel room in Orlando, Florida just one day after performing a live comedy show on 9 January, aged 65. A medical report concluded that the well-loved comedian died from a blow to the head, most likely from falling backwards and striking his head against the carpeted floor.
Stamos, who was Saget’s Full House co-star and close friend, tweeted ahead of the ceremony: “Disappointed to hear that Bob Saget will be LEFT OUT of the In Memoriam segment tonight @TheTonyawards. Bob was brilliant in The Drowsy Chaperone & Hand to God. Come on @BroadwayLeague and @TheWing ! Do the right thing! Bob loved Broadway and I know the community loved him.”
He urged Saget’s fans “to make some noise about this”, before wishing DeBose, her co-hosts Julianne Hough and Darren Criss, and all the “well-deserving nominees” his best.
Reacting to Stamos’s “upsetting” post, several Twitter users said they “won’t be watching” the awards ceremony.
According to multiple reports, Saget remained absent from the segment. During the In Memoriam tribute, Billy Porter performed a live rendition of “On the Street Where You Live” from My Fair Lady – with its lyrics changed to “On The Street Where You Lived”.
The Independent has contacted a representative for the Tony Awards for comment.
In addition to his television and film roles, Saget made his Broadway debut in 2007’s The Drowsy Chaperone. In 2015, he joined the cast of Robert Askins’s irreverent comedy Hand to God as Pastor Greg.
Earlier this year, Oscars viewers called out the Academy for not including Saget in their In Memoriam tribute section.
The full list of winners at the 2022 can be found here.
