It’s been a pretty crazy week. We lost a whole day to the Instagram Blackout of 2019, and there’s been way too much Bachelor/Bachelorette news to keep up with. Despite all of this, the week’s biggest story has definitely been the college admissions scandal. Earlier this week, more than four dozen people were indicted for fraudulent practices, mostly involving falsifying test scores. At the center of the investigation is William Rick Singer, a businessman who facilitated all of the crimes that went down. Now, it’s officially the biggest college admissions scandal ever prosecuted in the US. When the story first broke, we were all focused on the celebrity angle, with beloved TV stars Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin both being indicted. After that, we turned our attention to how all of this actually went down.
It’s no big surprise that the college admissions system is corrupt, but seeing concrete examples of how rich people cheated the system still stings a little bit. When I wasn’t happy with my ACT score, my mom just bought me a practice book that I pretended to use like a normal teen. Also, I mean, I already assumed rich people were bribing their way into colleges, but I always thought it was slightly more subtle, like by sponsoring buildings, not buying a fake SAT score. I wish I’d known that was an option this entire time! Oh well.
At the center of this whole mess is Lori Loughlin’s daughter, Olivia Jade. You’ve probably seen her face and heard her name a lot in the last few days, but if you’re like me and you’re blissfully unaware of teen influencers, you probably don’t really know anything about her and have probably been asking yourself, “who is Olivia Jade?” but been too ashamed to Google it. I’m about to change that, so you’re welcome!!
First and foremost, Olivia Jade is a freshman at the University of Southern California. As we all know, she worked hard to earn her spot on the crew team, and she’s on track to be the team MVP this season. Just kidding! Her parents paid a quarter of a million dollars to have her falsely designated as a crew team recruit, allowing her to basically be automatically accepted to USC. She definitely hasn’t gone to a single practice, but to be fair, I wouldn’t want to wake up at 5am to go rowing either.
This clip from one of her YouTube videos last year has gone viral (for obvious reasons) in the wake of this week’s news:
Olivia Jade said that she only wanted to go to college to party and go to football games… are we really shocked that her mom was involved in a bribery to get her admitted to USC??? pic.twitter.com/8t3qdZUzIP
— Mal (@bbmalxo) March 12, 2019
That’s a major yikes. I mean, I went to college for the game days and the parties too, but I also needed to get a degree so I could, like, get a job and make money for the rest of my life. So obviously Olivia Jade wasn’t there for the right reasons, but what did she actually mean when she talked about trying to “balance it all”? Her career as a YouTuber and influencer, of course!
Olivia Jade started her YouTube channel back in 2014, and she now has nearly two million subscribers. Her videos are mostly about beauty and fashion, and I won’t pretend that she’s not one of the most stunning 18-year-olds I’ve ever seen. Pretty sure I was a sweaty disaster at her age, but I’m not mad about it. Because of who her mom is, Olivia has always had a lot of opportunities, but last year she really upped her brand game with her very own Sephora collaboration. The first product in the collection was a highlight palette, because there definitely aren’t enough of those in the world.
Obviously Olivia Jade and her family are in some legal hot water right now, but that’s not the only problem. Yesterday, Sephora responded to concerned customers on Twitter, and announced that they’re ending their partnership with Olivia Jade immediately. Sucks for her, but at least she’ll have her college education to fall back on!
Hi there, After careful review of recent developments, we have made the decision to end the Sephora Collection partnership with Olivia Jade, effective immediately.
— Sephora (@Sephora) March 14, 2019
Meanwhile, on the Sephora website, people have been leaving totally savage reviews on her product page. There are lots to choose from, but this is my personal favorite. I’ve really been looking for the perfect highlight to skip class, so I’m glad I found it.
Olivia Jade still hasn’t made any kind of statement about the scandal on her social media accounts, but I can’t wait to see her string together a sentence about the legal system. In the mean time, Twitter has been absolutely on fire with memes about Olivia, and I fully can’t keep it together in the office right now:
olivia jade failing her SATs but then hearing her mom bribe the teacher pic.twitter.com/GsWmi4kk7r
— molly (@dyonvi) March 12, 2019
I’m always down for a Britney Spears meme, any time, anywhere. People are also joking about the potential legal trouble Olivia Jade could be facing, even though it seems like her parents are the ones paying the price:
olivia jade clearing out her dorm room at usc pic.twitter.com/FLC8ZgH7kw
— rosie (@bethecowboys) March 12, 2019
As for Olivia’s USC education, the latest reports are that she and her older sister Bella won’t be going back to school after spring break because they would be “viciously bullied.” That’s probably true, but it’s also unclear whether they’ll even be allowed to go back. USC has said that they’ll be making decisions on a case-by-case basis, and no decisions have been made yet. I really hope Olivia Jade’s USC hearing gets live-streamed, because I’m dying to know what will happen next.
Images: Shutterstock; @oliviajade / Instagram; @bbmalxo, @sephora, @dyonvi @bethecowboys/ Twitter; Sephora
