One of Lori Loughlin‘s former co-stars is breaking her silence on the college admissions cheating scandal.
Pamela Donnelly, who shared the screen with Loughlin on her first ever television appearance on ABC’s The Edge Of Night, left acting and is now a best-selling author and expert on college admissions.
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In an interview with TooFab, the former actress revealed the bribery scheme was a known fact among experts.
“I knew this was going on across the entire [board], those of us in the industry have known for many years this was going on,” she told the outlet. “You only need follow the money. Greed is unfortunately what’s undermining college access in this country.”
The SWAT Team Tactics for Getting Your Teen Into College author, who is also the CEO of Gate College System, revealed she has been approached many time by parents hoping to get help with college admissions from higher-ups in the community.
“I’m a mom, and I understand that we all want to give our kids advantages,” she said. “But I think we really do a disservice when we take away our children’s voices, when we imply that they couldn’t get there without us cheating the system.”
“When your kid is already sitting on third base with every advantage in the world, when some are out here trying to help the kids who can’t even find a bat to get up to home plate and get in the game — that is a pretty low manipulation.”
Donnelly also recalled her time acting alongside Loughlin, describing the When Calls the Heart alum as “effervescent, beautiful and wildly popular. Her image as “Aunt Becky” from Full House, she thinks, is what led to so much scrutiny after news broke about her involvement in the scheme.
“Yes she’s wholesome, and I believe that wholesomeness is real… and she got caught doing something really unethical, and her family are now going to be paying a desperate price,” she told the publication.
Loughlin, and husband Mossimo Giannulli are accused of paying $500,000 in order to classify their daughters, Bella, 20, and Olivia, 19, as student athlete recruits for the University of Southern California, despite them not being involved with sports.
Donnelly said she feels for Olivia, who along with potentially losing her spot at the college, saw her reputation as a YouTuber shattered by the scandal; especially after footage from her videos surfaced where she admitted she was more interested in partying than studying.
“I can’t honestly say that I feel sorry [for her]”, Donnelly said. “I can say that I cringed when I saw that footage. I was like “that is literally the worst thing you could have said.”
