NATION SCANDAL TRAPS STARS
LOS ANGELES: Hollywood actor Lori Loughlin has been dropped by a TV network and her daughter has lost sponsorship deals, in the fallout from the US colleges scandal.
Crown Media Family Networks, the company that owns the Hallmark cable channel, yesterday announced it had cut ties with Loughlin, its Garage Sale Mysteries star, after she was charged for her involvement in the scam.
“We are no longer working with Lori Loughlin and have stopped development of all productions that air on the Crown Media Family Network channels involving the actor,” the company declared in a statement.
Hallmark’s announcement followed an earlier one from the Sephora beauty chain, which said it was ending its partnership with one of Loughlin’s daughters, Olivia Jade Giannulli.
Products from her makeup collaboration had been removed from Sephora’s website by Thursday afternoon.
Olivia Jade has also lost a contract with hair products company TRESemme.
Loughlin and her husband were accused on Tuesday of paying $US500,000 in a scheme that involved cheating on college entrance exams and bribing athletic coaches to help Olivia and her sister, Isabella Giannulli, get into the University of Southern California.
Loughlin and her husband were taken into federal custody and later released on separate $US1 million bonds on Wednesday.
Loughlin and her husband allegedly arranged to pay a bribe to have their two children designated as recruits to a University of Southern California rowing crew.
But the children barely knew one end of an oar from the other, according to the prosecutors.
The Loughlins allegedly staged a photo of older daughter Isabella on a rowing machine.
The strategy worked and they used it again, complete with rowing machine, with younger daughter Olivia.
University officials apparently didn’t spot that both students claimed to be coxes, who don’t need to row.
Olivia Jade is a socialmedia star with 1.3 million Instagram followers.
She recently apologised after she boasted to her followers that she didn’t “really care about school” and wanted the “experience” of “partying” while at USC.
The Loughlins were far from alone in falsely claiming sporting excellence in the alleged scam.
University coaches in sports as varied as football, tennis, volleyball and sailing colluded in the conspiracy, according to prosecutors.
Some have since been sacked and some have cooperated with the investigation.
A wealthy California media executive, Elizabeth Kimmel, allegedly claimed her son was “an elite high school pole-vaulter” in his application for USC, even though he’d never done athletics at high school.
His application was accompanied by a doctored photo of a real pole-vaulter clearing a 4.2m bar.
Television star Felicity Huffman was also taken into custody and released on bail this week accused of allegedly paying to boost a SAT score for her daughter Sofia Grace, 18.
Huffman and her Oscarnominated actor husband William H. Macy, were both secretly recorded in phone calls organising the complex plot to have their daughter admitted into college.
Huffman, who won an Emmy playing harassed mother-of-four Lynette Scavo in Desperate Housewives, has been released on $250,000 bail after surrendering her passport.
Yesterday lawsuits began emerging a day after federal prosecutors said a California company had made about $US25 million from parents seeking spots for their children in top schools, including Georgetown University, Stanford University and Yale University.
Fifty people, including 33 parents and athletics coaches, have been criminally charged in the largest known college admissions scandal in American history.
The accused mastermind, William Singer, has pleaded guilty to racketeering charges. Prosecutors said Singer used his Edge College & Career Network and an affiliated non-profit to help prospective students cheat.