Just under two years after the college admission scandal took everyone by storm, Olivia Jade Giannulli, the daughter of Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli, is speaking out. The 21-year-old took it to Red Table Talk with Jada Pinkett Smith, her mom Adrienne Banfield-Jones and Smith’s daughter Willow Smith. While Banfield-Jones fought the idea of having Giannulli on the show “tooth and nail” because Giannulli’s situation was the “definition of white privilege,” Smith did so anyway because she found it important.
“There is no justifying or excusing what happened, because what happened was wrong,” Giannulli said, before explaining that she does feel she deserves and opportunity to redeem herself and not be punished for a mistake she and her family made. “I’m 21, I feel like I deserve a second chance to redeem myself, to show I’ve grown.” Red Table Talk is known for having incredibly deep discussions, and being a place where people want to go to discuss hot topics such as this in what feels like a very safe environment. This being the reason Giannulli chose the family-hosted show, Banfield-Jones was not happy that her daughter Smith was so accepting of the idea to have Giannulli on.
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“I just found it really ironic that she chose three black women to reach out to her for her redemption story,” the 67-year-old expressed. “Her being here is the epitome of white privilege to me.” While Smith and Willow both agreed with her, Smith found it important to allow Giannulli a safe place to speak and apologize, and more importantly, a place where she could continue to be educated.
“I understand where you’re coming from, but let me just be clear: I never want to be the thing that was done to me by White women. I never want to be that,” Smith detailed, while her mom said, “OK.” Smith continued, “I also believe that these are the kinds of attitudes that feed the same thing we’re fighting. It’s like, people look at us, they say, ‘You’re Black and you’re female’ and they automatically put us in a category. So, looking at her as being White and privileged and putting her in a category, it’s the same thing. So I just see it as a cycle.”
While it was clear Banfield-Jones was unhappy at first, throughout the interview Giannulli continued to state how wrong her parents’ actions were, even admitting that at first, she didn’t even understand why it was wrong because that was the world she grew up in.
