If you haven’t heard by now, Lori Loughlin of “Full House” and Felicity Huffman (I honestly don’t know who that is but she’s in all the headlines too) were among many charged with paying a shit ton of money to have their academically inferior children admitted to schools like USC, Stanford and Yale to name a few.
If this sounds legal, and you find yourself wondering why they’re in hot water, that would be because these Hollywood parents apparently weren’t smart enough to just buy a fucking building at the school of their choice.
Loughlin effectively paid $500,000 so that her social circle would think that her daughters were good at crew. A hell of price to get into your number one and to feign athleticism.
The ploy involved paying off coaches and athletic administrators to say that their kids were being recruited. Recruiting practices have gotten plenty of heat at major football factories, but it’s fair to say no one is paying attention to the latest water polo and soccer commits.
It is pretty alarming that, not only were they not great at their sports, but in a lot of cases, they didn’t even play the fucking sport in high school. That’s like the Red Sox saying they’re going to draft a hipster best known for telling kids that their vinyl collection sucks to pitch in the big leagues.
That was the angle, and it worked well. Bribing non-revenue coaches at elite schools is an easy sell. Take a water polo or crew coach who makes $50k and bribe him with (in one case) $400,000. Worst case? They lose their job. Yes, they could do time as well, but for them it’s life-changing money and they could get fired for far less.
Which is to say that this scam wasn’t about the kids involved in this case. They didn’t need the opportunities and the network, nor the degree. It was about the parents doing everything in their power to make sure people thought their kids were special. In many of the cases, the kids didn’t even seem to have any knowledge of the scam.
Talk about an awkward dinner conversation. Honey we need to talk about something. It turns out that you’re painfully average so I’m going to have to pay the price of a decent home in a bedroom community for you to go where you want. Sound good?
Oh, and you’re sick at water polo now so you better learn to swim.
The insane amount of effort put into getting her kid into USC felt like maybe a cure for AIDS could’ve been more imminent. There was paying for extra time on SAT’s (which you can get for free, it’s called an IED plan) people taking standardized tests for them and also correcting answers in real-time (because if they had the right answers we wouldn’t be here today).
The fall-out is now in full swing. The Hallmark Channel cut ties with Loughlin immediately, and now “Fuller House” on Netflix has followed suit. Meanwhile, Loughlin’s daughter Olivia Jade has left USC and has also been dropped by Sephora and Estee Lauder as an “influencer” or “brand ambassador” whichever horrible name they’ve come up with to help Youtubers sleep at night.
Olivia would’ve been perfectly happy at ASU, where there are scores of vapid chicks modeling and “influencing” in what is essentially a hot girl training academy. Instead, her parents basically paid a half-million dollars so that she wouldn’t go to a school beneath her.
But sadly the worst part is that 750 kids who rightfully earned their spots to elite colleges were denied because some people have more money than others.
Next time, just buy the fucking building.