The Story of Olivia Jade

Kylie Riveron, Student Writer

University of Southern California is one of the world’s leading private research universities, located in the heart of Los Angeles. Although the university is widely known as being prestigious, in March of 2019 it was made public that USC was being investigated over a criminal conspiracy related to admissions. When being investigated it was found that Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli, parents of social media influencer Olivia Jade and Isabella Giannulli, were accused of using bribery to help their children get ahead of others during the competitive college admissions process. 

After this information was out, Olivia Jade was scrutinized by the public for her every move. As a social media influencer, advertising to the general public was Olivia Jade’s main source of income. Olivia had brand deals that monetized her work whenever she added in an advertisement. Before the scandal Olivia’s biggest deals were with Amazon, Sephora, and Tresemmé. She had worked with Amazon on a dorm tour for her Youtube channel and she had a collaboration with Sephora in the works to produce a makeup palette. Olivia also posted many pictures on instagram advertising new Tresemmé products. One day after the scandal was in the public eye, Sephora decided to end its partnership with Olivia Jade and Tresemmé announced it was doing the same. Many companies began backing out of working with Olivia Jade due to the admissions scandal.

Olivia Jade recently made a comeback to social media after being MIA since March. She broke her silence by posting an instagram photo captioned, “#aclosesourcesays” and tagged the news media outlets who covered the scandal. The picture was of her sticking both her middle fingers up. The public did not like this, they viewed it as a privileged child who obviously had not learned a lesson and stayed entitled. Olivia quickly deleted this photo and she began posting random pictures here and there with the comments limited to close friends only, due to the public’s hate comments. 

This past week Olivia uploaded a video to Youtube speaking on her return to the platform. The video was short and only lasted around two minutes. She said she couldn’t say much about the case but that she felt ready to come back to making videos after being gone for several months. Olivia made no apology and gave no explanation to her subscribers. She once again came off as entitled and as if this whole situation had no effect on her. Her subscribers did not like this and took to the comments. Almost every comment spoke on how she did not even apologize for what had happened and how she once again proved to be privileged and ungrateful. 

Since the college admission scandal broke Olivia Jade has been having a hard time rebuilding her career as an influencer. Her parent’s criminal conspiracy along with her lack of empathy and growth after the situation has resulted in a now failing career. Olivia has not shown any remorse towards her and her parents wrongdoing and it is drastically taking a toll on her profession and life. As a result of the USC college admissions scandal, Olivia is fighting each and everyday to make a lasting comeback to her once successful career.