Olivia Jade Finally Addressed Her College Admissions Scandal & People Have Mixed Feelings

The latest episode of Red Table Talk was one of the most intense ones yet. On Tuesday, Dec. 8, Olivia Jade Giannulli — the daughter of Full House star Lori Loughlin and fashion designer Mossimo Giannulli — made an appearance on the show to discuss the infamous 2019 college admissions scandal that landed her parents in prison. During the 30-minute video, host Jada Pinkett Smith, her mother Adrienne Banfield-Norris, and her daughter Willow Smith, talked to Olivia Jade in length about white privilege. Olivia Jade's quotes about her college admissions scandal are apologetic, but not everyone is forgiving her.

In May, Loughlin and Giannulli pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, admitting they paid $500,000 to help get their daughters — Olivia Jade and Isabella Rose Giannulli — admitted into The University of Southern California. Loughlin is currently serving a two-month federal prison sentence that will end before the new year, while Giannulli is serving a five-month sentence that will go into early 2021.

Olivia Jade went on a YouTube hiatus for several months due to the situation, but she eventually returned to the platform in December 2019. At the time, she told viewers she was "not allowed to speak on anything" concerning the college admission scandals for legal reasons. Now, that's all changed because she finally opened up about the whole ordeal on Red Table Talk.

"I think this has been a really eye-opening experience for me, and although there's a lot of negative around it, and there's a lot of mistakes and wrongdoings, it's led me to have a completely different outlook on a lot of situations," Olivia Jade said, adding she's learned a lot about what happened and wants to move on with her life. "I'm 21 and I feel like I deserve a second chance to redeem myself to show I've grown."

Olivia Jade said she was on spring break when she learned of the college admissions scandal. "I remember feeling so ashamed. I went home and hid myself for three or four months," she recalled.

She went on to say she isn't trying to "victimize herself" by coming on the show, and acknowledged she and her family had done wrong. "I don't want pity. I don't deserve pity. We messed up. I just want a second chance to say I recognize I messed up. For so long, I wasn't able to talk about this because of the legalities behind it. I never got to say I'm sorry that this all happened," she said.

Olivia Jade also admitted the hardest part about the situation was the realization that she was so ignorant of her own privilege. "I think a huge part of having privilege is not knowing you have privilege. And so, when it was happening, it didn't feel wrong. It didn't feel like, 'Well, that's wrong. A lot of people don't have that.' I was in my own little bubble focusing on my comfortable world," the star explained.

Twitter had mixed feelings about her appearance. Some appreciated that she owned up to her and her family's mistakes, and thought she deserved a second chance.

Others weren't so forgiving, and felt Olivia Jade was being disingenuous when she claimed she didn't understand what her family was doing was wrong.

You can watch Olivia Jade's entire interview on the official Red Table Talk Facebook page.

In the end, Olivia Jade revealed she's thankful for the criticism because it taught her a huge lesson, saying, "I understand why people are angry and I understand why people say hurtful things, and I would too if I wasn't in my boat."