Getty Olivia Jade and Lori Loughlin attend WCRF's "An Unforgettable Evening" at the Beverly Wilshire Four Seasons Hotel on February 27, 2018.
Olivia Jade Giannulli appeared on Red Table Talk on Tuesday, December 7 to talk about the college admissions scandal that involved her mother, Lori Loughlin, and her father, Mossimo Giannulli. She shared what her parents said when she first confronted them about the scandal.
Lori Loughlin, who was a lead character in Hallmark’s hit series When Calls the Heart until the college admissions scandal broke, checked into prison on October 30. Loughlin was sentenced to two months in prison plus two years of supervised release.
She Said Her Parents Admitted They ‘Messed Up’
Olivia Jade Giannulli appeared on Red Table Talk on Facebook Watch, speaking with host Jada Pinkett Smith, her daughter Willow Smith, and her mother Adrienne Banfield-Jones.
Giannulli said that she didn’t really understand what was going on when the news about the college admissions scandal first broke. She was sitting with some friends and quickly left when she found out. But her parents didn’t have a lot to say at first when she confronted them.
“Although I’ve had a really strong relationship with my mom and my dad my whole life, I was definitely confused when this all came out, and I went and confronted them about everything,” she said. “They didn’t really have much to say, except, like, ‘I’m so sorry. I, like, really messed up in trying to give the best to you and your sister.'”
Even though she’s unhappy about what happened, Giannulli told Red Table Talk that she’s not going to judge them for the scandal.
“They’re my family and I’ve known them since I was out of the womb…,” she said. “So I know they’re good people and I know that I’m not gonna judge them for a mistake they made. And although it’s a big one, they’re gonna pay the price for it. And regardless of what people say, I’ve seen them day in and day out and how they’ve received all of this, and I know that they’ve struggled.”
She said her father was so focused on one particular college because he was very attached to his daughters and he wanted them to be nearby. Her mom, she said, wasn’t very involved in the process.
“I really believe my dad has attachment issues and didn’t want us to leave California…” she said. “…My mom really for most of the time when I was applying to school, was in Canada shooting a movie. She was involved in my whole childhood but when it came to that, she was like, ‘Moss you handle it, I’m out.’ … She put off so much work to raise us. … So she felt like she got us to an age where we can handle ourselves and then she went back to working… So I think having us close to home was a big one.”
She told Red Table Talk that neither of her parents went to college, so the whole thing was a little too important to them.
“Neither of them went to college, so I think it was important for them,” she said. “‘…We didn’t get to have that. I want to give it to you.’ … But they wanted to give it to us a little too much, you know?”
Olivia Jade Giannulli Said She Didn’t Grasp the Seriousness of Everything at First
GettySephora Collection 2018 Ambassador Olivia Jade attends the Sephora Collection #Lipstories launch.
When asked if she was angry when she first learned the news, Giannulli told Red Table Talk that she was really more embarrassed.
“To be honest, I wasn’t angry,” she said about her initial response to learning what her parents did. “And I think it’s because I didn’t have a good understanding of what just happened. I didn’t see the wrong in it. Like, 100% honestly, when it first happened I didn’t look at it and say, ‘Oh my god, how dare we do this?’ I was like, ‘Why is everybody complaining? I’m confused what we did.’ And that’s embarrassing to admit. … I walked around my whole 20 years of life not realizing like, ‘You have insane privilege. You’re, like, the poster child of white privilege and you had no idea.'”
She said there’s no justifying or excusing what happened, and it was definitely wrong. She said she was on Spring Break when she first learned, with friends, and she felt so ashamed.
“I went home and hid myself for probably like three or four months,” she said.
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