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Earlier this week, fans of Hallmark Channel movies and Sephora products had their world rocked when Full House star Lori Loughlin was one of close to 50 people who were indicted in relation to a massive college bribery scandal that’s shed some major light on the shady world of college admissions.
Before the news broke, I was under the impression most rich people followed the tried and true strategy of buying the naming rights to a building on campus to get their kid into the school of their choice.
However, it turns out that’s not exactly the case.
According to the officials running the sting—dubbed “Operation Varsity Blues”—Loughlin allegedly paid $650,000 to a company called Key, a self-described “Private Life Coaching and College Counseling Company” run by a guy named Rick Singer, who helped people with too much money figure out various ways to cheat the system.
While some people went with the classic “have someone smarter than your dumbass kid take the SAT for them” route, others went to greater lengths—like a couple of parents who paid to have the face of their teen photoshopped onto a picture of a water polo player and created a fake athletic profile in order to get them into USC (in addition to dropping $250,000 for good measure).
Tons of people used Singer’s services to give their kids a competitive edge over the years—including Phil Mickelson, who has a 19-year-old daughter who’s currently a student at Brown.
However, according to TMZ, the golfer says he was totally in the dark about Singer’s illicit activities
“Our family, along with thousands of others, used Rick Singer’s company to guide us through the college admission process.
“We are shocked by the revelations of these events. Obviously, we were not part of this fraud, our kids would disown us if we ever tried to interfere.”
I have to admit I don’t have any real reason to doubt Lefty here considering officials probably would have loved to have a bigger name than Lori Loughlin serving as the face of the scandal but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to see what the fallout would look like if Mickelson was actually charged.