Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have been famous since before they could walk. Their parents, Jarnette Olsen and David Olsen, have been both credited with their career success and also treated with skepticism as both of their daughters have borne that success in ways that is perceived as both positive and negative.
Interestingly enough, David Olsen didn't seem to believe in the potential his daughters had when they began starring on Full House in the early 1990s. In 1991, he told The Washington Post that he didn't quite understand why they were so appealing to audiences all over the world. "They’re just kind of funny. They were almost like chimpanzees when they were little. You just dress them up and they’re fun. I guess they’re just photogenic."
But his daughters definitely took off, and their relationships with each of their parents were impacted as a result.
David claimed, "After the first season, we almost pulled them off the show because we worried whether it would be too disruptive to them and to the rest of the family. But Mary-Kate and Ashley really enjoyed being there, and we eventually decided that as long as they were having fun we'd let them keep doing it."
But curiously enough, though their father claimed he and Jarnette had serious concerns about how the show could impact the lives of Mary-Kate, Ashley, and the rest of the family, the two adults began co-managing their daughters' careers around the same time.
Things for the family took a tough turn in 1996, when Dave and Jarnette announced they were divorcing because Dave planned to marry his secretary. Ashley reportedly chose to skip the wedding, with tabloids reporting that Mary-Kate stepped in as maid of honor while Ashley stayed home with their distraught mother.
The Star published an article that claimed Jarnette and Dave were talking about separating the twins in a heated custody battle: "Their father and mother are talking about sharing them — one to dad, one to mom. That's horrible for the children. Mary-Kate was always a daddy's girl and Ashley, the shyer one, was a mama's girl. But the kids are a mess now. The bond between them that was so strong is being threatened."
However, both twins denied these claims in a later People interview celebrating their 18th birthday. Ashley explained, "To be honest, we were kind of busy at that point. We had so many people that loved us that we were like, ‘That’s okay. Things will be better this way.’ We were very mature for our age."
One thing definitely changed: Dave Olsen took over to become the sole manager of Mary-Kate's and Ashley's careers after the divorce. In fact, it seemed that their mother chose to completely drop out of the role altogether, with a report in The New York Times noting that "their mother, Jarnette, does not speak to the press or participate in Mary-Kate and Ashley’s lives as public figures."
To his credit, Dave Olsen was reportedly great with managing and protecting the twins' money. A 1993 TV Guide interview claims he put enormous sums of money in trust funds that were protected until the twins turned 18, and he made sure to hire outside attorneys who would control their estates and earnings, instead of taking on that role himself.
In 2010, people were stunned by reports that Dave Olsen had filed for bankruptcy. At 24 years old, Mary-Kate and Ashley were already fully in charge of their own finances and had been for years; news that their father was foreclosing on a $2.2 million home seemed unfathomable.
In the same year, Mary-Kate gave an interview to Marie Claire in which she described herself and her sister as "little monkey performers" and noted, "I wouldn't wish my upbringing on anybody. I look at old pictures of me, and I don’t feel connected to them at all."
Ashley echoed this sentiment in the same interview: "I look back at the things that we did and the clothes that we wore, and I think, 'Wow, we really were troupers.' It was almost like I was in the army. School, work, homework, fly to New York, get in at 2 in the morning, do a morning show at 5 am, then another one at 7, then a radio interview at 10, you know?"
In 2012, Elizabeth Olsen, the twins' younger sister and star in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, shed a little more light on what her parents are like in an interview with The Guardian: "My parents had very little to do with my sisters' job really, at least not after getting them that first job. They always did what they could to hook them up with the right people to handle things, like being child stars and managing assets and running production companies and so on, but they never pretended they could do it well themselves."
She added that neither of her parents have ever taken on the role of stage mom or dad: "And my parents were so not that at all. My mother's a ballet dancer — which isn't what you call a job — and the mother of four children, and my father works full-time in real estate. My sisters run their own thing now. They have since they turned 18."
Elizabeth even clarified that when she wanted to quit acting at the age of 10, her parents supported her decision: "I did! My parents made me write down a pros and cons list. And the cons just piled up. So I figured I'd keep acting as a hobby until I was older. Because I felt that pressure, and that people would say, 'Oh, that's nepotism.' I decided that as long as I felt confident and worked hard for it, instead of having it handed to me, no one could take that away from me. I don't have any insecurity about it. I never got any job because of my sisters."
These days, it's tough to know what Jarnette Olsen or Dave Olsen are up to. Neither parent has a public social media account, a decision that has definitely seemed to influence the twins. Earlier this year, Mary-Kate explained to Entertainment Tonight, "We were raised to be discreet people."
Dave Olsen did go on to have two more children with his second wife. The twins are reportedly close with their siblings James and Courtney, both of whom have online presences of their own. While they tend to keep things low-key, every so often one of them will offer a tiny glimpse in the secret world of the Olsen family.
