T-shirt designer Mossimo Giannulli — who’s been accused of paying bribes to get his daughters into the University of Southern California — has spoken out about how he lied to his own parents about attending the elite school, while pocketing their tuition payments.
Back in the 1980s, Giannulli convinced his dad that he was a college student by making bogus report cards and got his pop to fork over cash with fake tuition bills, according to a recently resurfaced 2016 profile on the fashion blog “The Hundreds.”
“SC was expensive, so that was how I was starting my company. I used all that cash,” Giannulli told the blog.
The article says Giannulli did attend some classes and he lived in a fraternity house at the school.
USC confirmed to CNN that Giannulli attended during the spring semester of 1984, but not as a fully matriculated student. He went to the College of Continuing Education, a non-degree program open to anyone “with no formal admissions requirements.” Those students were given “visitor status” on campus.
In a March 8 interview on “The Zach Sang Show,” Giannulli’s daughter Olivia Jade talked about her dad’s “crazy” college time.
“I don’t know if I am supposed to say this, sorry dad. But [he] was like never enrolled in college, he faked his way through it. Yeah, so then he started his whole business with tuition money that his parents thought was going to college.”
In that same interview, the beauty blogger said she planned to use her time in college to enhance her brand.
Her parents, Giannulli and his wife, former “Fuller House” star Lori Loughlin, have pleaded not guilty in the college admissions bribery scam. They are facing up to 40 years behind bars for allegedly paying $500,000 to get their daughters, Olivia Jade and Isabella Rose, into USC as bogus recruits for the crew team.