Candace Cameron Bure's Complete Transformation

Candace Cameron Bure has over 75 acting credits to her name and an impressive career that has spanned four decades, and for all of her success, she's courted just as much controversy. From inappropriate outfits to strange things about her marriage to her faith-driven career decisions, Bure has always given haters lots of fodder. There are even plenty of fellow celebs who can't stand the Hallmark alum. And yet, she hasn't allowed any of the negativity to faze her. 

Since landing her breakout role in 1987, playing D.J. Tanner on the smash hit "Full House," Bure has continued to work steadily — and always on her own terms. While she's grown and evolved, her priorities have shifted from career to family and back again. Her faith has also gone through several phases. However, at every point in her life, she's continued to make decisions based on her own convictions, not others'. Here's your look inside Candace Cameron Bure's complete transformation through the years.

Candace Cameron Bure has spent most of her life appearing on the small screen, but she didn't come from a Hollywood family. Despite being born and raised in Los Angeles, it was actually a fluke that she found acting. "My mom had a friend who had her son in the business," the actor told Yahoo Entertainment. That friend offered to give photos of all of the Cameron children to the agent she used, and Candace's mom agreed. Thanks to that decision, Kirk Cameron landed on "Growing Pains," while a 5-year-old Bure started snagging commercials for huge brands like KFC and Chef Boyardee. Then, at just 9 years old, she booked the part that would forever change her life: D.J. Tanner on "Full House."

Despite the chaos that came with growing up on TV with millions watching her every move, the eight-year experience was a positive one for Bure. "Full House was a huge highlight of my life," she gushed to Yahoo Entertainment. Similarly, she told Good Housekeeping, "If I am forever known as D.J. Tanner and everyone's big sister, I will be thrilled and happy." What's more, working on the show gave Bure a second family. Indeed, the cast formed an unshakeable bond that has withstood the test of time. "We're all close friends," Bure told Fox News in 2024. "We keep in contact, like, constantly."

Despite growing up in the spotlight, Candace Cameron Bure is adamant that she had a normal childhood. In fact, she even called herself an "average, typical American kid" in an interview with Good Housekeeping. Indeed, as she told Yahoo Entertainment, her parents made it a point to ensure both she and Kirk Cameron experienced as many regular aspects of childhood as possible, from doing chores to finishing high school. 

In fact, Bure went one step further and, rather than be schooled on the "Full House" set with her co-stars, she chose to attend a public middle school and regular high school in the mornings before shooting. She didn't switch to on-set learning until the last couple of years, when balancing the two simply became too hard. Even so, she did get to attend her senior prom. As for her date, she decided to blend her on- and off-screen lives, bringing Scott Weinger, a.k.a. D.J. Tanner's boyfriend, Steve Hale. Posting a throwback snap from that night to Instagram, Bure quipped, "Yup, this really did happen."

Their prom romp shouldn't have come as a surprise to fans; Bure and Weinger are incredibly close to this day. While celebrating her TV beau's birthday in 2017, Bure posted a truly sweet tribute to Facebook. "To say how much I love and adore you would be an understatement," she gushed. "You will always be my first sushi date, movie premier date, and prom date x3."

Candace Cameron Bure has often spoken about her positive experiences as a child actor, telling Good Housekeeping in 2020, "I never had people around me telling me that I had to look a certain way or be a certain weight." And yet, she admitted that she's struggled with an eating disorder for much of her life. "When I was 19, it kind of just crept up on me," she admitted to Your Teen in 2012. Speaking candidly about having bulimia, she explained, "For me, it was about finding comfort in food when I was having a tough time and then not wanting to gain weight from overeating."

Bure found she needed all of the comfort she could get when she began raising a family in her early 20s. After marrying NHL pro Valeri Bure, she hit pause on her acting career and followed his work to Montreal, Canada. Soon, they welcomed their first child and, as she shared with Good Housekeeping in 2017, "I really kind of lost a sense of who I was." While trying to come to terms with her new normal, she explained, "I got into a cycle of binge eating and feeling such guilt and shame for that, then I would start purging." Bure eventually broke the cycle, but told Yahoo Entertainment there is no cure and "it never goes away." The only thing that changes is that "you have the tools in place to know how to handle it when those temptations or urges arise."

Candace Cameron Bure made no secret of just how important religion is to her, but she actually didn't find her faith until later in life. As she wrote in her official biography, hers wasn't an overly religious home — at first. "I grew up in a moral home," she told fans, "but not a home that talked about Jesus." 

That changed when she was 12. "It wasn't until my parents hit a hard place in their marriage that the four of us kids found ourselves in church," she recalled. At that time, Bure was baptized, but as she admitted, she was so busy with her career that religion wasn't a priority. "I wasn't walking with God, I wasn't reading my Bible," she told brother Kirk Cameron on his TBN show.

It wasn't until after Bure had her first child, Natasha, in her early 20s that she began to reevaluate her faith. "I started thinking, 'What do I want to teach my kids about God?'" she recalled. At the same time, her brother gave her a copy of a book called "Revival's Golden Key." "It rocked my world," she told him. "I realized for the first time in my life, 'Oh, I am a sinner.'" From that moment on, Bure put her relationship with God at the forefront, and it soon began influencing all aspects of her life, including acting. "It's been my guiding light as to what projects I choose," she shared.

Candace Cameron Bure hasn't just enjoyed longevity in her career, but also in her personal life. She first met NHL pro Valeri Bure at a charity hockey game in 1994. She was there supporting co-star Dave Coulier (who was actually playing in the match) when her future hubby caught her eye. "[Lori Loughlin and I] were looking at these two cute men on the ice, and I was like 'I wanna meet that one, the blonde one,' which was Val," she told Us Weekly. 

Coulier obliged and introduced the two, and they went on their first date the very next day. Less than a year later, the couple got engaged and tied the knot in 1996. Their family grew quickly from there; their daughter, Natasha, was born in 1998, followed by their son, Lev, in 2000, and their son, Maksim, in 2002.

Over the years, the actor has often been asked to share the couple's secret to success, and she's listed everything from taking time apart — "Being away from each other makes the heart grow fonder," she told Us Weekly – to just plain hard work. That's because she's the first to admit that they've had their share of hurdles. "There's no one that has this amazingly perfect marriage," she mused. "You just hang in there and stick with it." Taking to Instagram to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary in 2021, Bure also underscored the importance of communication, grace, sex, laughter, and patience before reiterating, "No marriage is picture perfect. Not one."

She's best known for her work as an actor, but Candace Cameron Bure decided to try her hand at being a talk show co-host in 2015 when she joined "The View." The transition proved to be short-lived, as Bure soon discovered the gig came with a lot of drama. 

Bure was the panel's conservative voice, and she found herself in the middle of numerous controversial exchanges throughout her stint. Perhaps the most heated came when she butted heads with Raven-Symoné while discussing an Oregon bakery that had refused to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. As Bure tried to argue on the side of the bakers, Symoné cut her off and slammed, "I refuse to associate with you right now."

"That was the most difficult job I've had to date," Bure, who left the show in 2016, told Good Housekeeping. "[You] always feel like you're fighting to speak your opinion." She's also since claimed that the stress it put her under took such a major toll on her emotional and mental health that it left her with PTSD.

Thanks to Netflix, the "Full House" crew had a chance to return to the small screen for five seasons when "Fuller House" debuted in 2016. Candace Cameron Bure was more than excited by the reboot, telling Vanity Fair, "I hope there's a 'Fullest House.' I hope it never ends." Her love of the series was so great, it couldn't even be dampened by a near-death experience.

As she revealed on the "How Rude, Tanneritos!" podcast in 2024, she could have lost her life during a stunt that went terribly wrong. For the scene, which was eventually scrapped, Bure was supposed to zipline across the family's living room and land gracefully on a platform. Instead, it all went awfully awry. "During rehearsal, the rig was not set up correctly and there was no safety stop on the end of it," she recalled. "So when I landed off the zipline and stopped, the whole mechanism — which is all metal and very, very heavy — slid right off the track and came right next to my head within an inch." 

When Bure said it was a near-death experience, she wasn't exaggerating, as said mechanism actually dented the floor and broke off a part of the stairs. "If I just even shifted my weight the tiniest bit, it would have probably broken my neck," she told listeners. Needless to say, director Mark Cendrowski quickly pulled the stunt.

Lacey Chabert may be the current Queen of Hallmark, but Candace Cameron Bure actually preceded her as the Queen of Christmas. After appearing in her first film for the network, 2008's "Moonlight & Mistletoe," Bure became a beloved Hallmark staple, starring in a bevy of projects and holiday films. All in all, her stint with the channel lasted over a decade because, as she told The Washington Post in 2020, it was the perfect fit. "Being intentional with my career and my choices, their branding has always lined up with what I want to represent and with the type of programming that I do, which is all family-friendly entertainment," she enthused.

She was also fiercely protective of her home network, publicly clapping back at critics who made fun of the light-hearted movies. "The reality of making them is a much tougher job than 'Fuller House' or any other series, really," she told Good Housekeeping in 2019. "This is definitely some of the hardest work that I do because they're such a grind: long hours, quick turnaround, putting on your happy face every day, and going out there to make Christmas happen."

However, in 2022 her relationship with Hallmark suddenly seemed to crumble.

When Hallmark CEO Bill Abbott left the network in 2020, it was amidst a whirlwind of controversy. He had cut a same-sex wedding commercial from the channel and was ultimately ousted amid the backlash. In response, he decided to launch a rival (more conservative) network called Great American Family (GAF). 

Jump to 2022, and Candace Cameron Bure decided to join him, sparking her own controversy. As she told The Wall Street Journal, she felt it was the right move because GAF's Christian values aligned with her own. In that same interview, she was asked if the network would ever consider shooting a holiday movie starring a same-sex couple as Hallmark had just done with "The Holiday Sitter." Her response ignited a media storm, as Bure mused, "I think that Great American Family will keep traditional marriage at the core." She later took to Instagram to say her words had been taken out of context.

Despite the drama, she's adamant that she didn't break up with Hallmark on bad terms. "It wasn't so much about leaving as it was about an opportunity to grow a new network that puts faith and family at the forefront of its content," she said in a 2024 Instagram Live, per Us Weekly. "I'm very proud of the work I did at Hallmark for 15 years and love all my friends there."

In addition to being a successful actor, Candace Cameron Bure is also an author and part-time winemaker. As of 2024, she had published three children's books, telling Today, "It truly is one of my favorite things to do." Speaking with Forbes, she said she was inspired to start writing because of how much she enjoyed reading to her own kiddos when they were growing up. As for her goal as an author, it's to blend fun and education. "I always want a little message in each book so that children can read and learn something or read with parents and talk about it," she told the outlet.

Bure's other (perhaps more surprising) pastime is running a winery with her husband. She and Valeri Bure began Bure Family Wines in 2006, first making wine from purchased grapes before securing a two-acre vineyard to grow their own in 2011. Bure gave fans a glimpse into the business in a 2020 video, explaining, "We knew we wanted to produce the best of the best wines in Napa Valley and that's what we do." She also showed off the fact that it really is a family-run operation as she, Valeri, and one of their sons patiently packed and shipped every single order that came through that afternoon.