Lori Loughlin Makes First TV Appearance Since College Admissions Scandal

Full House actress Lori Loughlin was (in)famously arrested for her part in a college admissions scandal in 2019. Along with her husband Mossimo Giannulli, she paid a $500,000 bribe to ensure her daughters Isabella Rose and Olivia Jade would get into college at University of Southern California; they were accepted as future members of the school’s crew team, even though neither girl had ever played the sport.

In 2020, Loughlin and Giannulli plead guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud and she spent two months in jail while her husband served a five-month sentence. Loughlin, 57, was also ordered to complete 150 community service hours upon her release. This past weekend, Loughlin made her first TV appearance since then. 

During Project Angel Food’s Lead with Love 3 broadcast, she spoke about her volunteer efforts, admitting that her work with the organization has helped her through recent tough times. 

“It is a community, it is a family, and all the people that work here are so wonderful,” Loughlin said in the segment, which was broadcast on Los Angeles’ KTLA 5. “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, and that’s why I’m so proud to be here and working with this organization, because they really do care. It’s really a community.”

While we all loved watching Loughlin on the original Full House, in the reboot (Netflix’s Fuller House), and in Hallmark’s series When Calls the Heart, abusing the privilege of her celebrity in order to buy her kids’ way into college was a lot to overlook. That being said, “to err is human, to forgive divine,” to quote Alexander Pope — and it sounds as though Loughlin is trying to make up for her past mistakes. Describing her collaboration with Project Angel Food, Loughlin explained they are “working with people who have hit a low in their life, facing extreme illness, or have lost their job during the pandemic.”

Loughlin has been edging back toward normalcy following her time out of the spotlight. Last September, she rebooked a role in When Calls the Heart — this was a big deal, seeing as she was previously written off the series in light of the scandal.

According to a source who spoke to PEOPLE last year about Louglin and her husband, “they are both beyond relieved to have completed their prison sentences. … Lori is a wonderful wife, mother, and friend. She and Mossimo made huge mistakes. They have taken responsibility for them and just want to start fresh now.”