Bob Saget’s pals John Mayer and Jeff Ross choke up while retrieving his car from LAX
Musician John Mayer and comedian Jeff Ross teared up while swapping stories about their love for Bob Saget — and Saget’s love for them — while they were retrieving their mutual friend’s car from the airport Wednesday.
The pair went live on Mayer’s Instagram for 25 minutes while driving on the 405 Freeway in Los Angeles after picking up Saget’s “immaculate,” “junk car” Prius from an LAX parking lot, where the late actor had left it before a flight to Florida. The “Full House” veteran was found dead Sunday at his Orlando hotel after performing on his “I Don’t Do Negative Comedy Tour.”
“This is the only time in my life I’ve been honored to help a friend out at LAX,” Mayer quipped about the usually arduous errand that most Angelenos dread.
After a week of loving tributes to the comedian, Bob Saget, who died Sunday while on tour, will be laid to rest in an event closed to the public.
But the pair turned the task, which cost $250, into a touching tribute to the beloved TV star. It was one of many testimonials that honored Saget this week after his unexpected death shook up his family, friends, fans and co-stars.
Mayer, 44, poured his heart out into his remembrance, explaining that he knew Saget for 15 years but still felt like “the new guy.”
“I’ve just never known a human being on this Earth who could give that much love, individually and completely, to that many people in a way that made each person feel like he was a main character in their life and they were a main character in his life,” Mayer said.
“He really was love,” Ross said. “Like, he represented that. He has a beautiful wife, three daughters and then made his fake family from TV into his real family.”
“And 30,000 people are tied for third place,” Mayer added.
“Do you know how effusive you have to be in your love for everyone in your life for each and every person he loved to be told by another: ‘He loved you so much’?” Mayer continued.
“Everyone is held into place by Bob’s insistence on telling everyone how much he loved everyone. ... Bob’s effusive and repeated expression of love is the greatest gift that he left people because all we have is the pain of his going.”
Here’s a look at The Times’ coverage of comedian Bob Saget, from his sitcom days on the 1990s comedy “Full House” to its Netflix revival and beyond.
Ross, 56, said he has spent the last few days at Saget’s house and praised how much of “a family guy” Saget was.
“I feel vulnerable. I feel less protected without him in the world. He was really the guy you called when you had a life issue,” Ross added. “There’s going to be something missing for a long time.”
And that’s when Mayer started choking up at the wheel: “The only person who could have given me the advice I needed in a nuanced way that I could understand is Bob. Because Bob was sadly a graduate of the university of loss,” Mayer said, with Ross adding that Saget was “a professional mourner.”
Bob Saget’s ‘Full House’ co-stars collectively issued a statement Monday: ‘He was a brother to us guys, a father to us girls and a friend to all of us.’
Indeed, the longtime “America’s Funniest Home Videos” host grieved several family members throughout his life, including his older sister, Gay, who battled scleroderma until her death in 1994.
“The guy to help with this [grief] is the guy who’s not here,” Mayer said, admitting that he was new to this kind of mourning. The “Your Body Is a Wonderland” singer got self-aware later and imagined his pain could provide fodder for new music.
“I didn’t understand this, so get ready for some records!” he joked.
‘I don’t know what happens when we die,’ Bob Saget wrote upon Betty White’s death, but he put his faith in her best guess. He was found dead Sunday.
Hitting a more serious note during their drive, Mayer opined that people didn’t know “that their love for Bob was 100% unironic” until Saget died, saying that was part of the “gut punch” after his death.
“He was a f— A-lister, man. He was Santa Claus. He’s bigger,” Mayer said. “I think he let people have fun. ... You didn’t have to quantify why you loved him.”
‘Full House’ star John Stamos, late-night host Jimmy Kimmel and Bob Saget’s wife, travel blogger Kelly Rizzo, are mourning the beloved actor and comic.
“Bob was so generous,” Ross continued. “And he’d always take everybody out. And I’d always try to take him out, that was my one thing with him. Because I didn’t want him to be ‘big daddy.’ I wanted him to just be my brother and not feel like he was having to take care of yet another person.
“And he really did take care of everybody, and he took care of me. If you need a doctor, if you need a lawyer, if you need a pastrami sandwich at 3 in the morning because some girl just broke your heart — Bob was that guy. He knew how to deal with it. He knew how to handle it.”
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