Audiences who’d been watching and enjoying Lori Loughlin on TV for decades got quite the shock in March of 2019, when the actress (and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli) was indicted on charges in the college admissions scandal. She was eventually sentenced to two months in federal prison, and ordered to do 150 hours of community service, as well as having to pay a fine of $150,000. Now, though, it’s being said that Loughlin actually spent an additional $500,000 after serving time for the scandal in an unexpected way: she sent some kids to college.
While there are probably still a lot of different opinions about what punishment Lori Loughlin, and the many others involved in the scandal, should have gotten, the fact is that she did finish serving her prison time, and complete the other requirements of her sentence. However, Us Weekly is reporting that, sometime after being released in late December of 2020, Loughlin decided to pay full tuition and expenses for two young people so that they could go to college for four years, each. According to the anonymous source they spoke with, the arrangements were made “privately,” and the star spent over $500,000 to make those college dreams come true.
As you might recall, Loughlin and Giannulli pleaded guilty to fraud for paying that exact amount of money so that documents could be falsified, which would help get both of their daughters, Isabella Rose and Olivia Jade, into USC. So, it would seem that Loughlin is trying to continue to make things right, by spending the same amount to help two other kids go to college, possibly realizing that her actions kept some deserving students out of USC because of the illegal actions of her and her husband.
The source didn’t say how Loughlin chose the students she assisted, or mention what school she paid for them to attend, but did also say:
[She wants to] put the past behind her. She has served her time in jail and completed her probation, community service and paid all of her court fines, [and] continues to work with Project Angel Food. [Loughlin wants to] be allowed to move on, [but feels] this stigma attached to her by people who don’t want her to have any success.
Loughlin finished her court ordered community service in early February of this year, with one of the charities she volunteered with being Project Angel Food, and it’s certainly good to hear that she’s continued to help out. It sounds like Loughlin is working very hard to make amends for her actions, possibly in part so that others will allow her resume some semblance of normalcy in her life. After the scandal broke, Loughlin was fired from Hallmark, where she’d spent several years working on When Calls the Heart, as well as starring in many movies for the company. She was also removed from the cast of Fuller House, where she reprised her beloved role of Aunt Becky.
It’s possible that there are people who don’t want to see her be able to get back to her career, but that might be changing. Loughlin was recently asked to bring back her When Calls the Heart character for the spinoff, When Hope Calls, which has moved to GAC Family for Season 2. Hopefully, she truly has learned some important lessons from her part in the scandal, and will take those throughout the rest of her life.
