‘The Poster Child Of White Privilege’: A Rundown On Olivia Jade’s First Interview Since College Scandal

For those who might need to be refreshed on Olivia Jade’s story, the 21-year-old got caught up in an admissions scandal during her freshmen year of college at the University of Southern California. A scandal which landed both her parents in jail, Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli pleaded guilty to bribing the college over $500,000 for both their daughters’ admission into the school as part of the crew team.

Although the inital arrest happened in March 2019, Olivia Jade’s parents only started serving their sentence in October of this year, and for the first time ever, Olivia is speaking out on what happened.

Joining Red Table Talk on Facebook Watch with Jada Pinkett Smith, her daughter Willlow Smith and her mother, Adrienne Banfield-Jones.

“We had the means to do something and we completely took it and ran with it. It was something that it was wrong,” the YouTube star said. “It really can’t be excused. On paper, it’s bad — it’s really bad. But I think what a lot of people don’t know is my parents came from a place of just, ‘I love my kids I just want to help my kids — whatever is best for them — I worked my whole life to provide for my family.’ I think they thought it was normal,” explained Olivia during the interview.

Continuing, she explained that she knows her position is one of privilege, but admits that she didn’t always know how privileged she was – especially when the admissions scandal broke and she initially didn’t see anything wrong with it.

“100 percent honesty, when it first happened, I didn’t look at it and say ‘Oh, my God, how dare we do this?’ I was like, ‘Why is everybody complaining. I’m confused what we did.’ That’s embarrassing to admit. That’s embarrassing in itself — that I walked around my whole 20 years of life not realizing, like, you have insane privilege. You’re, like, the poster child of white privilege and you had no idea. I think that although I’ve had a really strong relationship with my mom and dad my whole life, I was definitely confused when this call came out,” she continued.

 

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Explaining that although she lost endorsements and work, Olivia noted that really learning about how lucky her life has been and actually realising her white privilege was the most important lesson from this all, adding that a large part of white privilege is unfortunately not knowing you have it.

“I understand why people are angry and understand why people say hurtful things and I would too if I wasn’t in my boat. … When you read it, you realise that there’s like some truth. I understood that people were upset and angry, and maybe it took me a little bit longer to understand what for, but man, am I glad I did realise.”

Taking this time as a “second chance to grow”, Olivia also spoke about both her parents in jail, adding that she hasn’t talked to them since their sentences began in October and admits that she’s finding that part “hard”.

Lastly, Olivia noted that she does believe this is a “good reflection period” for her parents and thinks this is a time when they’re all growing.

You can watch the full interview on Facebook Watch here.

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