Lori Loughlin gushed over daughter’s entrance to college on ‘Today’
Two years before Lori Loughlin was charged with bribing her children’s way into college, she gushed about sending her oldest child off to school on the “Today” show and how she was “preparing” for her departure.
“So many parents watching I’m sure are going through this where they’re about to watch a child go off to college… are you preparing for it in any other way?” Hoda Kotb asked Loughlin as she sat beside her daughter Isabella whose grades were at or just below the “low end” of USC’s admission standards, court documents revealed Tuesday.
“I think I’m in complete denial, I really am because when I think about it too much it will make me cry so I gotta stop,” Loughlin said, fanning away crocodile tears.
“My husband keeps saying, ‘Lori you’re not gonna see her so just be prepared.’”
In a veiled “clap back” to the alleged fraudster, “Today” tweeted out the interview around 5 p.m. Tuesday shortly after news broke that Loughlin was planning to turn herself in on the fraud charges.
“See Lori Loughlin talk about sending her daughter to college in 2017 interview,” the tweet read.
Loughlin and her fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli are among dozens of people accused of bribing their kids way into top colleges in a massive admissions scandal that was announced Tuesday morning.
The couple first got involved with the scheme in 2016 with their daughter Isabella, who appeared in the 2017 interview and discussed her hopes to study acting at the prestigious California school.
Court documents allege Isabella’s grades didn’t cut USC’s standards and Giannulli wanted her to get into a school “other than [Arizona State University],” so he enlisted the help of William Singer, who is accused of running the scam.
The dad allegedly sent a photo of Isabella on a rowing machine to smooth over the scheme to get her into USC as a crew coxswain even though she had never rowed competitively or even participated in the sport, court papers alleged.
Representatives from Loughlin and her husband haven’t responded to requests for comment.