Olivia Jade Giannulli is taking to social media to discuss the college admissions scandal, which resulted in her enrollment at the University of Southern California in fall 2018.
The 21-year-old social media star took to TikTok to share an inspirational message that has stuck with her since news of the scandal broke.
"A very inspirational woman once told me, we were talking about being in the public and being publicly shamed, and I was like, 'Well, my situation doesn't even compare, I'm not even going to start to compare it to yours,'" the daughter of Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli shared. "And she looked at me and said, 'Olivia, it doesn't matter if I'm drowning in 60 feet of water and you're drowning in 30, we're both still drowning.'"
"I think about that quote every day because I think it's so true and it's such a bigger message to our world right now. I think we're all very quick to judge. I think we're all very quick to put people down," she said. "I just want people to remember, if your feelings are hurting, if they're valid to you, they're valid. And it doesn't matter if someone is going through worse. You're allowed to have a hard time in this world. But that doesn't take away from somebody else, and that shouldn't take away from you. We're all human beings."
While she was in high school, Giannulli's parents participated in a scheme in which they paid $500,000 to Rick Singer, a college admissions "coach" and organizer of the scandal. Through bribes, Singer ensured that the USC admissions department would unfairly admit their daughters, Olivia and Bella, to the school, because they would join the women's rowing team, despite the fact that neither had trained in the sport or had plans to join the team. After the scandal broke, Giannulli not only suffered from public backlash, but lost lucrative contracts with brands she promoted and partnered with, like Sephora and TRESemmé.