On Thursday, more than three years after the college admissions scandal began, Lori Loughlin‘s daughters sent her love on her 58th birthday.
Olivia Jade, 22, posted a vintage photo of her mom holding her as a baby, while 23-year-old Bella Giannulli chose a throwback photo of all three women.
In 2020, the former Full House star spent two months away from her daughters, as she was in a California federal prison for 60 days. Both she and their father, Loughlin’s husband Mossimo Giannulli, pleaded guilty to having paid $500,000 to William “Rick” Singer in order to have their daughters admitted into the University of Southern California as crew recruits, despite neither having participated in the sport. She was released in Dec. 2020, although she was then required to complete 100 hours of community service and two years of supervised release. (Giannulli served his own, slightly longer sentence.)
Her daughters defended her on Olivia Jade’s podcast, Conversations With Olivia Jade, in Nov. 2021. Olivia Jade recalled the frustration of seeing media coverage about her mom.
“I think for me even though I also was getting dragged negatively, it didn’t nearly affect me as much as Mom having all this thrown on her. And I think we can talk about this, that she really took this whole thing on her back, solely,” she said. “There are a lot of people that were in this case and a lot of other parents and I do not know one other person’s name.”
Loughlin herself made a rare TV appearance Saturday on Los Angeles news station KTLA-5’s special “Lead With Love 3,” benefitting the city’s Project Angel Food, which distributes nourishing meals to people in need. She’s been volunteering at the organization since her Dec. 2020 release.
“That’s what Project Angel Food is: working with people who have hit a low in their life,” Loughlin said, per multiple reports. “They have welcomed me with such open arms at a time when I was feeling particularly down and broken. That’s how I found a home here, and that’s what I feel like they did for me. … I’m so proud to be here and working with this organization because they really do care. … It’s more than just feeding people. It’s about loving people and helping people.”
