Legal experts have said there is strong evidence that Olivia Jade Giannulli knowingly participated in her parents’ scheme to get her fraudulently admitted to the University of Southern California as a faux crew team recruit — but that doesn’t diminish the love she evidently enjoys from some loyal fans who ecstatically welcomed the social media influencer back to YouTube Sunday night.
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“OMG! This makes me so happy,” tweeted one fan, while Olivia Jade’s older sister Isabella sent her “love” and encouragement via Instagram.
“We’ve missed you Olivia,” tweeted another. “We love you, we the silent are always here for you. So never stop being free.”
With accolades like that, it may be no surprise that 20-year-old Olivia Jade Giannulli exists in such a bubble of denial that she would use her return to YouTube to present herself as an innocent casualty of the college admissions scandal.
Then again, her famous mother and father, Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli, similarly see themselves as innocent of wrongdoing and as the victims of overzealous federal prosecutors, as sources close to the couple have told media outlets over the last nine months.
In her short video titled “hi again,” Olivia Jade said in a plaintive, raspy voice that she has really missed connecting with her nearly 2 million YouTube subscribers via her videos about makeup, fashion and her life as a social media influencer and as the daughter of a rich Hollywood TV star. Olivia Jade said she debated for months about whether to return to YouTube.
“I’m terrified to make this video and come back,” Olivia Jade said, “but I want to start taking smaller steps in the right direction.”
“I actually really, really miss it,” Olivia Jade continued in the video which as been viewed more than 1.5 million times. “I feel like a huge part of me is not the same because this is something that I’m really passionate about and something I really like to do. … I’m really excited to start filming again and start uploading again.”
Olivia Jade’s tone certainly was far less combative than her last failed attempt to return to social media over the summer. That’s when she posted — and then deleted — a photo of herself flipping off the media who have been covering her parents’ alleged role in the college admissions scandal.
Given that Olivia Jade had at one point become one of the most mocked and reviled figures in the scandal, not everyone welcomes her attempt to rebuild her lucrative influencer career. The comments in her YouTube channel feed have been particularly scathing, far more than those on Twitter, even. Here is a sampling:
— “Girl nobody wants to watch a scammer pretend to be an innocent girl on YouTube that type of content is oversaturated already.”
— “This whole family is just so oblivious to the whole situation…..Amazing. But they are gonna get a wake up call when the parents are sentenced to jail.”
— “You knew you didn’t earn your way into college so are just as guilty as your parents. All of you deserve jail time!”
The last sentiment is backed by a former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani, who previously told this news organization that there is sufficient evidence that Olivia Jade and her sister “knew of the fraudulent conspiracy, agreed to participate in it, and took overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy.”
Rahmani said it’s even possible that Isabella and Olivia Jade could be charged in the case, or that prosecutors will use their alleged involvement to pressure their parents into finally taking a plea deal.
In her video, Olivia Jade said she wouldn’t be talking about the alleged crimes committed by her parents, or, presumably, about what Rahmani said is her own complicity in the bribery scheme.
That she has probably been advised by her parents’ attorneys to not say too much about the case is the reason she said she stayed away from social media for so many months.
Loughlin and Giannulli were arrested in March and accused of paying $500,000 in bribes to William “Rick” Singer and his alleged accomplices at USC to get Olivia Jade and Isabella, 21, admitted to the prestigious Los Angeles school by fraudulently presenting them ss star crew athletes.
The complaint by U.S. federal prosecutors show how the former “Full House” star and her fashion designer husband had both their daughters pose on rowing machines for photos that could be used in their fake athletic profiles.
With regard to Olivia Jade’s specific involvement, Singer emailed Loughlin and Giannulli in July 2017 and asked for an “action picture” of the then-prep-school student on a rowing machine that would allow her to be falsely presented as a “crew coxswain for the L.A. Marina Club team.” Several days later, Giannulli, copying Loughlin, emailed Singer a photograph of Olivia Jade on an ergometer, the complaint shows.
Later in 2017, a guidance counselor at Olivia Jade’s elite all-girls Catholic high school asked her about being a USC crew team recruit, even though she didn’t participate in the sport, the complaint shows. Her father subsequently confronted the counselor about such questions and evidently pushed the counselor to accept that Olivia Jade was a crew athlete.
The complaint also shows that Olivia Jade was confused about how to finalize her USC application so someone who worked for Singer did it for her.
Loughlin and Giannulli currently face up to 50 years in federal prison if convicted of fraud, money laundering and bribery charges. A recent report said that Loughlin could get that sentence knocked down to 10 years if she were willing to take a plea deal and testify against her husband.
After her parents’ arrest, Olivia Jade’s reputation and social media influencer career took a massive hit. She lost advertising deals that included cosmetics retailer Sephora and hair products company TRESemme. She and her sister also stopped attending classes at USC, with the university finally confirming several months ago that they were no longer students.
Meanwhile, journalists unearthed Olivia Jade’s own videos and interviews in which she admitted that going to school wasn’t a priority for her and that she mostly cared about vlogging and being a social media influencer. It also appeared that she was using her status as a USC student to promote herself on Instagram and to win a deal with Amazon, promoting their line of home decor products for college students.
As result of the scandal and her acknowledged indifference to college, Olivia Jade briefly gained thousands of new YouTube subscribers, perhaps those with a rubbernecking sort of curiosity. She topped off at 1.97 million subscribers in April 2019 before the numbers dropped back down to around 1.93 million, according to the site Trackanalytics.com.
