Lori Loughlin’s daughter finally speaks out about the college scandal

Lori Loughlin, best known as Aunt Becky on Full House and Fuller House, is almost done with her two month prison sentence for her role in the 2019 college admissions scandal. Loughlin began her sentence on Oct. 30, which was determined back in Aug. 2020. She and her husband each pled guilty to a count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud for paying $500,000 USD to get their daughters in USC as rowers.

Neither daughters are rowers. Her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, was sentenced to five months in prison. The pair are currently incarcerated, leaving their daughters, Olivia Jade and Isabella Rose on the outside. Both of Loughlin’s daughters have been keeping a low profile during this time. Though Olivia Jade has felt some of the effects of the scandal.

Olivia Jade, a Youtuber and social media influencer, lost a brand deal with Sephora amidst the Internet ridicule that comes with the public learning that your parents essentially bought your way into college. Now, with her mother serving her prison sentence, Jade made an appearance on Facebook Watch’s Red Table Talk with Willow Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Adrienne Banfield-Norris to discuss things.

In the episode, Pinkett Smith makes it clear that her mother and daughter both had very different opinions in having Olivia Jade come on Red Table Talk. Banfield-Norris didn’t feel it was right for a white woman to come to a table of black women looking for support when the same may not happen in the roles were reversed, “Her being here is the epitome of white privilege. She’s going to recover whether her ass is sitting at this table or not.”

Pinkett Smith said that she decided to have Jade on the series as “an exercise in compassion”. More importantly, as a famous parent with children in the spotlight due to her and her husband’s careers, she understands about children being blamed for the actions of the famous parents, which, yeah, that definitely makes sense.

In the episode, which marks Jade’s first interview since everything (and first interview ever), she said, “I think this has been a really eye-opening experience for me. And although there’s a lot of negative around it, and there’s a lot of mistakes and wrongdoings, it’s led me to have a completely different outlook on a lot of situations.”

Jade also makes it clear, “There is no justifying or excusing what happened, because what happened is wrong.” She also admitted in the episode of Red Table Talk that she has not spoken with either of her parents since they began serving their sentences. Right now, she’s currently using this time away from them to reflect on everything and hopes that they are doing the same.

The 21-year-old added that she would like a second chance to show how she has changed from this experience. She added, “I don’t want pity. I don’t deserve pity. We messed up. I just want a second chance to say I recognize I messed up. For so long, I wasn’t able to talk about this because of the legalities behind it. I never got to say I’m sorry that this all happened.”

Jade finished by saying that she’s been especially focused on privilege as well. “I think a huge part of having privilege is not knowing you have privilege. And so, when it was happening, it didn’t feel wrong. It didn’t feel like, ‘Well, that’s wrong. A lot of people don’t have that.’ I was in my own little bubble focusing on my comfortable world…I understand why people are angry and why people people say hurtful things. I would too if I wasn’t in this boat.”

Red Table Talk airs on Tuesdays on Facebook Watch. You can go see Jade’s episode now.