Olivia Jade Is Still Angry at Her Parents but Reportedly May Have “Gone Along With” the Scam
Much like nature, the celebrity gossip news cycle abhors a vacuum, and that’s essentially what we’ve been living in since Lori Loughlin, her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, and Felicity Huffman were indicted and arrested as part of Operation Varsity Blues last month. Sure, the defendants showed up earlier this week in court for a pretrail appearance in Boston, but we’ve had precious little in the way of new developments. Prosecutors have unveiled no new evidence or information about the purported college admission–related crimes, nor have there been any teary sit-down interviews with the likes of Oprah or Diane Sawyer, let alone any social media breakdowns. Their children and families have been notably silent as well; even Loughlin’s youngest daughter, Olivia Jade, who had been quite active as a YouTuber and influencer before all of this, has remained uncharacteristically offline (though one source has claimed that she’s currently using the “close friends” feature on Instagram Stories).
Of course, celebrity gossip has its own solution to the problem of an information vacuum: the anonymous source. Perhaps tired of waiting for more, both Us Weekly and People ran major stories this week purporting to fill in the holes with off-the-record sources.
According to Us Weekly, Olivia is quite angry at her parents and barely talking to them. However, the 19-year-old’s issue is not so much that she’s stopped going to class at USC (though she is apparently still technically enrolled), but rather that the entire brouhaha has put a major blemish on her blossoming beauty-influencer career (she’s since lost deals with Sephora and TRESemmé). “[Olivia] was passionate about her career, and now everything she built has imploded before her eyes,” one source tells the tabloid. “She feels they ruined everything.”
Another source says that Olivia identifies as the “victim” in the situation, and “blames her mom and dad for this scandal and for the downfall of her career.”
This tracks with a lot of the other gossip tidbits we’ve heard, including that she’s currently living with her boyfriend instead of her parents. It also happens to track with much of People’s story.
“Olivia is still distraught and embarrassed. She hasn’t been home much,” a source told that tabloid. “She is very angry with her parents. She just wants to figure out how she can rebuild her brand.”
However, it’s another anonymous quote in the People story that has everyone talking.
The FBI’s indictment of Olivia’s parents and the others implicated in the scam made it clear that many of the children involved had no idea what their parents were up to, though it didn’t say that all the children were shielded from the truth, and didn’t specify who may have known.
People’s source adds that, “She would have never gone along with it if she thought this would happen. Her thing is that she trusted her parents.”
That’s leading some to wonder whether Olivia knew what was going on from the beginning, or whether she was shielded from the truth. Either way, Olivia does not face charges herself, but whether she knew or not could play a part in any attempts she makes to rebuild her influencer brand.
Of course, even though People is considered one of our more reliable tabloids, it’s still just an anonymous source, and a source who could have misspoken or had some other agenda.
In the absence of anything newer, however, it’s natural that people are curious about even the slightest development. In the meantime, maybe Olivia can take solace in the fact that lately everyone in New York has been enthralled by the courtroom stylings of the accused SoHo scammer Anna Delvey. Controversy doesn’t necessarily preclude one from being able to influence.
Related: What Happens to Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin’s Careers Now?
