Olivia Jade Giannulli this week made her return to her social media influencer ways, by posting a YouTube video and Instagram posts that showcased her cleavage, featured her playing with her dogs and let her talk about missing her fans.
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With these posts, it looks like Olivia Jade is back to stay, and her embattled mother, Lori Loughlin, couldn’t be more “proud” that her daughter is “brave” enough to “put herself out there,” according to a report.
The former “Full House” actress understands that her 20-year-old daughter faces a lot of hostility because she and her husband Mossimo Giannulli were indicted on fraud, bribery and money laundering charges and face long prison sentences for their alleged roles in the college admissions scandal, Hollywood Life reported.
Still, “Lori is incredibly proud of Olivia for making the decision to return to YouTube despite everything going on right now,” a source told Hollywood Life. “She gave Olivia her full blessing.”
Certainly, Olivia Jade’s return to social media, after nine months of a self-imposed hiatus, has provoked widespread backlash, with people condemning her for being in denial and showing no remorse over the allegations that her parents paid $500,000 in bribes to get her and her sister Isabella, 21, fraudulently admitted to the University of Southern California.
Legal experts also say there is strong evidence that Olivia Jade and Isabella participated in the scheme, which involved them falsely purporting to be crew team athletes in their USC applications. Both sisters left USC after their parents’ arrest and are no longer enrolled at the Los Angeles college.
Olivia Jade’s first attempt at a comeback was a two-minute video, titled “hi again,” which she posted Sunday. In a plaintive, raspy voice, she said she had really missed connecting with her nearly 2 million YouTube subscribers, via her videos about makeup, fashion and her life as the daughter of a rich Hollywood TV star.
While Olivia Jade said she couldn’t talk about the legal case against her parents, she very much wanted to talk about her feelings.
“Though I’m terrified to make this video and to come back, I know that I also want to start taking smaller steps in the right direction. This is the best I can do and I want to move on with my life,” Olivia Jade said. “It’s so hard because I’m not trying to make this about me or how I’ve been because that’s not the point of this.”
While Olivia Jade has fans who posted heart emojis and other messages welcoming her return, the majority of comments were pretty scathing.
“Girl nobody wants to watch a scammer pretend to be an innocent girl on YouTube,” wrote one person in the comments section of her YouTube channel.
“This whole family is just so oblivious to the whole situation,” wrote another person commenting. And still another wrote, “You knew you didn’t earn your way into college so are just as guilty as your parents. All of you deserve jail time!”
Not to be deterred, Olivia Jade took to Instagram Wednesday to post two selfies of her lying on a bed, wearing perfectly shaped eyebrows and a tiny tank top that allowed her to show ample cleavage.
“I hope you have a beautiful day,” Olivia Jade captioned her photo.
During the week, Olivia Jade also posted two Instagram stories, one which showed her cuddling a dog, and a second which showed a video of three dogs playing and chasing one another around a living room. In the second video, Olivia Jade also paid tribute to her boyfriend, 23-year-old singer and model Jackson Guthy.
After news of the scandal broke, Olivia Jade moved out of her parents’ Bel Air mansion and in with Guthy, who lives in Malibu. They briefly broke up in the wake of her parents’ arrest in March. But they rekindled their romance and were officially back together in August, People reported.
Olivia Jade’s parents have not publicly commented on the charges against them, though they have said in court documents that they are “innocent of the charges brought against them and are eager to clear their names.”
The couple also pre-approved the message their daughter wanted to deliver to YouTube fans, Hollywood Life reported. A source said that Loughlin and Giannulli “had the conversation with Olivia about what she wanted to discuss with her fans, and they all agreed that she was doing the right thing.”
“It’s a difficult position for anyone to be put in, but they’re really doing the best they can given the circumstances,” the source added.
A second source told Hollywood Life that Loughlin and Giannulli “both know how much she misses doing her videos, so they are all for her getting back to (posting).”
Loughlin especially thought it was brave of Olivia to “put herself out there,” despite knowing that her comeback might not be received well, the source told said.