Why Mary-Kate And Ashley Olsen Disappeared From Hollywood

If you're of a certain age, you basically grew up with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, the twins who took Hollywood by storm from the late 1980s through the mid-2000s. After getting their start on an uber-popular sitcom, the twins were known for their films, many of which brought them all over the world, and it certainly seemed like they were on the brink of forming an enormous entertainment empire. Then, the two basically disappeared from the entertainment industry and shifted their focus to something completely different: high fashion.

So, why aren't the two acting anymore, and what are they doing today? More specifically, why did they leave Hollywood behind for a brand new journey ... and did any of their family members take their place on the big and small screen? (The answer to that last one is yes, actually.) Here's everything we know about the world-famous Olsen twins, why they stopped acting, and what they've been up to since they stopped working as actors.

Everyone who's even just a little bit familiar with Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen's Hollywood journey knows that they got their shared start on ABC's beloved sitcom "Full House" all the way back in 1987 when they were both just six months old, though they were three months older by the time the series actually started shooting. Because of child labor laws, twins typically play babies and toddlers in movies and TV shows, and this is no exception; the Olsen twins both played Michelle Tanner, the youngest member of the show's blended family and daughter of Danny Tanner (Bob Saget), a widower with two older daughters (Jodie Sweetin's Stephanie and Candace Cameron's D.J.).

Alongside a crossover episode (where "Full House" joined forces with "Hangin' with Mr. Cooper," which aired in 1992), the Olsens kept playing Michelle in turn until "Full House" came to an end in 1995. Though they kept acting from there, when "Fuller House" became a reality on Netflix in 2016, the twins elected not to return, and in a sweet nod to their post-Hollywood career, the show reworked itself so that Michelle's absence was due to her working as a fashion designer in New York. Though the twins' "Full House" co-star John Stamos once admitted that he was initially "angry" (via People Magazine) that they declined, he eventually understood that the Olsen twins simply do not want to return to acting.

After "Full House" ended its run in 1995, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen took control of their Hollywood future — they'd already started their company Dualstar, which launched in 1993 — and took on their first standalone movie that same year, titled "It Takes Two." The whole thing is sort of a twist on "The Parent Trap" in that Ashley's Alyssa and Mary-Kate's Amanda attend summer camp, realize they look identical, and switch lives to trick their parental figures (Steve Guttenberg and Kirstie Alley) into getting together. They followed that with a series that only ran for one season, "Two of a Kind," which aired on ABC in 1998. "Billboard Dad," a direct-to-video film starring Mary-Kate and Ashley, also released that same year.

Frankly, Mary-Kate and Ashley's ironclad grip on Hollywood was almost exclusively through direct-to-video movies starring the twins, like 1999's "Passport to Paris," 2000's "Our Lips Are Sealed," "Winning London" and "Holiday in the Sun" — both of which came out in 2001 — and "Getting There" and "When in Rome," which came out in 2002. Then, in 2004, the two made their final film together, "New York Minute," which actually did release in theaters (marking the duo's only theatrical release besides "It Takes Two").

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen both turned 18 in 2004 and became co-presidents of Dualstar for their birthday, but by that point, their time as Hollywood starlets was largely over. Ashley never professionally acted again after "New York Minute," and though Mary-Kate did appear in some movies and TV shows, the results — 2006's "Factory Girl," 2008's "The Wackness," and 2011's "Beastly" — produced seriously diminishing returns. Ultimately, "Beastly" marked Mary-Kate's final role as well. (To be fair to Mary-Kate, her turns in "Weeds" and "Samantha Who?" on the small screen were actually pretty fun.)

While the Olsen twins released a ton of products through Dualstar meant for teen audiences, like fragrances and decor, their time on-screen was basically over ... particularly by the time they launched their fashion line The Row in 2012. So, why did they leave acting? "I was reading scripts, and ultimately I just said to the people who are representing me, 'I need to do things 100 percent. I don't feel like I can give you 100 percent of my time,'" Ashley told Allure Magazine reporter Judy Bacharach in 2013 during a feature alongside her twin before continuing, "There's a lot of compromise in the entertainment industry." Mary-Kate, for her part, agreed, telling the magazine of her time as an actor, "I am not great at not being able to control the end product."

In 2015, Ashley Olsen revealed that the inspiration for The Row — which is named for Savile Row, a street in London's posh Mayfair neighborhood known for its bespoke suit tailors — came out of her quest for the perfect T-shirt, and ultimately, the line's first collection was comprised of just seven items (including that tee). Known for its "quiet luxury," The Row also comes with a hefty price tag (as of this writing, dress prices on The Row's official website range from $2,000 to $7,000, while that "perfect" tee in cotton is roughly $500). So, did the sisters have trouble making the leap from teen wares to haute couture? Ashley told Women's Wear Daily in 2015 that, yes, that was an obstacle, but they cleared it together: 

"I think there's a very obvious answer to that question. It never stopped us from working hard. It never got in the way of our end goal, which was to make clothes for women."

The Row has won three Council of Fashion Designers of America Awards — Womenswear Designer of the Year in both 2012 and 2015, and Accessories Designer of the Year in 2019 — and in 2024, the heiress to L'Oreal and the family behind Chanel, according to Bloomberg, purchased a stake in The Row. As a result, the company is now valued at $1 billion as I write this; clearly, Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen are doing just fine as high-end fashion designers. The duo's other lines — Elizabeth & James (named for their siblings), tee line Stylemint, and J.C. Penny collaboration Olsenboye — have all faded, but The Row endures.

If you were a huge fan of Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen during their time in Hollywood, don't fret! There's still an Olsen in the entertainment industry, and she's crushing it! Elizabeth Olsen, the youngest member of the famous family — her older brother James, who goes by Trent, is between her and the twins in age — appeared in a few of her sisters' projects as a small child but ultimately elected to study acting at New York University, quietly graduating in 2013. (She reconsidered acting in the first place after the media's intense scrutiny of her sister Mary-Kate's weight.)

In 2011, Olsen starred in "Martha Marcy May Marlene," Sean Durkin's story of a young woman who escapes from a cult, which seriously put her on the map in the entertainment industry — and she wisely followed it with solid independent projects like "Liberal Arts," "Kill Your Darlings," and "Very Good Girls." There's no question, though, that the youngest Olsen's biggest mark on pop culture is her role as Wanda Maximoff, also known as the "Scarlet Witch," in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which she may or may not reprise in the future ... but through projects like "Avengers: Age of Ultron" and "WandaVision," she's proven she can easily play in the enormous Marvel sandbox at the drop of a hat. In 2024, Olsen also showed off her considerable dramatic chops once again in "His Three Daughters," a quiet yet intense family story that also stars Carrie Coon and Natasha Lyonne. 

Mary-Kate and Ashley may not be acting anymore, but Elizabeth is carrying on their legacy.