Olivia Jade's Red Table Talk interview shows she knows exactly how to apologize for college cheating scandal

BuzzFeed News

In fact, Olivia Jade Giannulli's appearance on today's episode of Jada Pinkett Smith's Facebook Watch show could be model for how her peers react to controversies. “On paper, it’s bad. It’s really bad,” said the 19-year-old daughter of Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli, who are both currently serving time for their roles in the college admissions scandal. “But I think what a lot of people don’t know is that my parents just came from a place of, ‘I love my kids, I just want to help my kids. Whatever is best for them,'” she explained of Loughlin and Giannulli. “I think they thought it was normal.” She added: “I didn’t realize at the time that was privilege." As Scacchi Koul points out, Olivia Jade's Red Table Talk appearance worked because she knew how to say sorry. "Giannulli’s nascent influencer career made her a poster girl for a certain kind of privilege," says Koul. "She wasn’t that concerned about going to school, didn’t need higher education to better herself or grant her more opportunity, and was lucky enough to have wealthy parents who could not only bribe her admission into a fun school but could fully finance four years there (though she hasn’t returned to school since her parents were sentenced and neither has her sister). In the aftermath of the scandal, she continued to post carefree selfies in poor taste, along with a few YouTube videos, namely one where she said she just wanted to “move on'' with her life back in December 2019. That didn’t work, of course, and even this past summer when she posted in support of Black Lives Matter, people on Twitter were quick to point out her own unexamined privilege, and the incredible luck that even after a massive bribery case like this, her parents will only have to serve a few short months in prison. But 2020 is a good year to try to change your narrative and Giannulli’s appearance on Red Table Talk does just that. The show, which streams on Facebook Watch, has typically been the domain for Black celebrities to talk about their scandals and, sometimes, to apologize."