Olivia Jade Giannulli is speaking out about “being publicly shamed” and offered some words of wisdom to her fans.
Over the weekend, the daughter of Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli posted a video on TikTok that allowed fans to get some insight into where her head is at these days.
The popular beauty vlogger has been embroiled in controversy since her parents admitted last year to paying $500,000 to get her and her sister into the University of Southern California as crew recruits, despite neither being a rower. Her mother served two months in prison last year while her father is still serving his five-month sentence. He’s slated for release next month.
In her TikTok, Giannulli talked about advice she once got from a “very inspirational woman.”
“We were talking about being in the public and being publicly shamed, and I was like, ‘Well, my situation doesn’t even compare. I’m not going to even start to compare it to yours,’” she said. “And she looked at me and she said, ‘Olivia, it doesn’t matter if I’m drowning in 60 feet of water and you’re drowning in 30. We’re both still drowning.’”
The 21-year-old continued: “I think about that quote every day because I think it’s so true and it’s such a bigger message to our world right now. I think we’re all very quick to judge. I think we’re all very quick to put people down. And I just want people to remember if your feelings are hurting, if they’re valid to you, they’re valid. And it doesn’t matter if somebody is going through worse. You’re allowed to have a hard time in this world. But that doesn’t take away from somebody else, and that shouldn’t take away from you. We’re all human beings.”
Since her parents were exposed for their role in the college admissions scandal, the influencer has not shied away from speaking out about how it’s affected her.
In December, she sat down with co-hosts Jada Pinkett Smith, her daughter Willow Smith and mother Adrienne Banfield-Norris on “Red Table Talk” and apologized for her involvement in the scandal.
“I think that what hasn’t been super public is that there is no justifying or excusing what happened. What happened was wrong and I think every single person in my family can be like, ‘That was messed up. That was a big mistake,’” she told them.
“But what I think was so important to me is to learn from the mistake and not to now be shamed and punished and never be given a second chance. Because I’m 21, I feel like I deserve a second chance to redeem myself, to show I’ve grown,” she continued.
Later in the interview, she said she’s “not trying to victimize myself.”
“I don’t want pity. I don’t deserve pity. We messed up,” she said. “I recognize that I messed up and for so long I wasn’t able to talk abut this because of the legalities behind it. I never got to say that I’m really sorry that this happened or I really own that this was a big mess up on everybody’s part. I think everybody feels that way in my family right now.”