SALT LAKE CITY — Lori Loughlin’s daughter Bella Giannulli has recently made headlines in the wake of the college admissions scandal despite avoiding the narrative for some time now.
For weeks, Loughlin and her husband Mossimo Giannulli have been in the national spotlight after they were accused of paying $500,000 in bribes so their daughters, Olivia Jade and Isabella Giannulli, would be team crew recruits for the University of Southern California. The couple pleaded not guilty.
Olivia Jade, a YouTube star, has also made several headlines. Reports on her relationship with her parents, whether or not she’ll have to testify, and how the scandal has affected her career as an influencer have been surfacing for some time.
Now, according to Vanity Fair, Bella Giannulli has joined “the college admissions scandal narrative.”
- “She was the first one to pose on the ergometer as ‘proof’ that she was a promising young crew team recruit for the University of Southern California, as the fed’s charging documents allege. And in the last few days or weeks, as the ferocious hunger around the college-admissions scandal has subsided somewhat, her story has begun to rise ever so slightly,” according to Vanity Fair.
In fact, an unnamed source — there are unnamed and anonymous sources all over these celebrity reports, which is par for the course with Hollywood scandals — told Entertainment Tonight that Bella is still close to Lori Loughlin.
- “Lori and Bella have remained incredibly close throughout and have been a wonderful support to one another,” the anonymous source told Entertainment Tonight. “Their closest friends feel it’s been devastating to watch the effects this situation has had on their family and their relationships. They fear if their plan doesn’t work in court it will break them up even more.”
Moreover: Photos of Olivia Jade and Bella out “clubbing” were also making the rounds on celebrity news websites this week, too. And, according to Elle, Olivia Jade and Bella Giannulli’s boyfriends broke up with them because of the scandal.
Yes, but: You could argue that Bella is more important to the college admissions scandal compared to her sister, according to Insider. Bella’s academic qualifications for the University of Southern California were "at or just below the 'low end' of USC's admission standards,” court documents say.
To work around that issue, Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli allegedly agreed to pay bribes to help Bella get into school, Insider reports.
- The couple agreed to make a “significant contribution” to the school’s athletic program. Instead, Mossimo Giannulli allegedly wired $200,000 to a fake nonprofit called Key Worldwide Foundation, according to CBS.
- Loughlin and Giannulli repeated the process one year later for their other daughter, Olivia Jade Giannulli, according to Insider.
Still: Olivia Jade’s name has been mentioned a lot in terms of the case. One lawyer said that Olivia Jade may have to testify against Loughlin. Reports suggest that Olivia Jade’s high school guidance counselor may have been a whistleblower in the case, too.