Why Kelly Rizzo Changed Her Mind About Dating After Bob Saget's Death

Kelly Rizzo was not one to hide her grief when Bob Saget died in 2022. The pair had been a couple for six years and married for three of them before the "Full House" star's untimely death. During the years they were an item, Rizzo only spoke highly of the comedian. "I've never met anybody like him," she told Us Weekly before they got hitched. "He keeps me on my toes, literally. He's just a wonderful guy. He's a comedian, so there's never a dull moment! And all of his friends are just so fun because they're just as fun and unique and complex as he is."

One can only imagine how devastated the "Eat Travel Rock TV" creator was when Saget unexpectedly passed away. At the time, she got candid about feeling "completely shattered" and stuck in a state of "disbelief," telling Us Weekly that the actor was "my whole heart" and "absolute everything." 

Even a year after his death, she admitted that she simply couldn't imagine herself being with someone else. In fact, she didn't want to give herself permission to vie for romance. "It was not even in my psyche to even cross that bridge and the thought of even anything serious anytime soon, I can't even process," she told ET. "It's just so complicated, so many emotions attached to that."

However, months later, Rizzo had a change of heart. Apparently, Saget's close circle made her realize that she deserves another chance at love.

Kelly Rizzo surprised fans when she revealed that she was no longer opposed to the idea of joining the dating pool sometime in the future. Speaking with Extra, Rizzo said that, while she still carries survivor's guilt, she's considering the prospect of re-entering the dating scene. "I'm open to it, yes," she said. "You feel guilty if you have happy moments or if you're not feeling sad all the time ... but then I learned that's very normal."

The reason why she changed her mind? Bob Saget's daughters, Aubrey, Lara, and Jennifer Saget, have cheered her on. "Now that enough time has passed, even his girls are always like ... 'That's silly. Heavenly Bob wants you to be happy,'" Rizzo shared. "Earthly Bob would've been like, 'Not too happy,'" she quipped.

It took Rizzo a long time to get to this place, of course. "In the first year, I couldn't even process what that would be like," she told the Daily Mail. It also helped that Saget's loved ones offered her words of support. "When I hear his friends and family say, 'No, he would want you to be happy,' and when you get to that point, then you feel at peace with that happening,'" she added, noting that she has remained close to her stepdaughters and even Saget's ex-wife, Sherri Kramer. "[Kramer and I] talk all the time, and she's just so wonderful and has been such a rock throughout everything," Rizzo said.

Kelly Rizzo may date another person someday or perhaps even decide to get married. If she's sure about anything, though, it's the fact that she will always view Bob Saget as her husband.

"It's like, he's still my husband," she told Amanda Kloots of "The Talk" at a panel discussion, via People. "It's not like, 'Oh, he's my former husband.' It's like ... the relationship is different now. It's just — it is what it is." Despite moving out of the home Rizzo once shared with Saget, she also shared that she made an effort to put up things that reminded her of him so she could still feel his presence. "I still talk to him and I have his pictures everywhere," she said.

All this isn't surprising, of course. After all, she has repeatedly declared that Saget was simply "the best man I've ever known in my life," as she said in an interview with Hoda Kotb on Today. Rizzo couldn't help but wax poetic about her late love. "He always was just so kind and loving to everybody," she said. "He was just so kind and so wonderful, and everybody that was in his life knew it. And even anybody that would just casually meet him was like, 'Wow, this is a special guy.'"