Lori Loughlin is best known for one big role: Aunt Becky on the '80s and '90s comedy hit
Full House, and the Netflix follow-up Fuller House.
She's continued to work steadily in the entertainment industry ever since her big break, but her
career never really took off.
Now, her indictment in a massive college admissions scandal could actually destroy her future
in Hollywood.
Let's dive into the scandal, plus look at a few more reasons Loughlin hasn't been everywhere
you look.
If Loughlin was having trouble finding quality roles before the big scandal, it's going to
be a whole lot tougher now.
Loughlin was among fifty people charged as a result of "Operation Varsity Blues," an
FBI investigation that discovered a massive scam involving wealthy people paying huge
sums to a man named William Singer to get their kids into top schools like Yale, Stanford,
and USC.
Among Singer's techniques: paying people to take the college entrance exams in lieu of
the wealthy kids, bribing test proctors, and bribing college coaches so that the privileged
applicants could claim to be athletic recruits, thus increasing their chance of acceptance
into their school of choice.
A number of rich folks are facing jail time for their involvement, including Desperate
Housewives star Felicity Huffman, and Loughlin and her husband, fashion designer Mossimo
Giannulli.
Government officials allege that Aunt Becky and the Target clothes guy spent $500,000
on Singer's services to get their daughters into USC.
"... that last bastion of the incompetent rich…
USC."
Loughlin and Giannulli even allegedly conspired with Singer to falsely make their daughters
appear to be recruits for the USC crew team, even though they'd never competitively rowed
a boat.
"Oh, I know, it's insane."
FBI agents attempted to arrest Loughlin at her California home on March 12th, 2019, but
she was filming in Vancouver.
They nabbed Giannulli instead, and Loughlin turned herself in the following day.
Before becoming embroiled in this massive scandal, what kind of shape was Loughlin's
career in?
Most prominently, she was pulling Aunt Becky duty once again on the surprisingly long-lasting
Fuller House.
While Loughlin is only a small part of Fuller House, work is work, and if that work is on
a popular show on a ubiquitous streaming platform, that feels like a good thing, right?
However, being part of the Full House universe could be a double-edged sword.
Actors and actresses who star on shows strongly associated with a specific era, or which viewers
strongly and fondly connect with their childhoods, often have a hard time moving on to other
projects.
Think of the "Child Star Curse," so many actors who made a name for themselves on family-friendly
sitcoms in the '70s, '80s, and '90s struggled to be taken seriously as adults.
Casting directors and audiences alike had difficulty seeing them as anyone but their
characters.
Loughlin might very well have the same problem.
She's still Aunt Becky to millions… and only Aunt Becky.
It's not like mainstream Hollywood and network TV turned their collective backs on the cast
of Full House once that show went off the air.
On the contrary, the goodwill and familiarity garnered by that show has propelled cast members'
TV careers over the years, particularly John Stamos and Bob Saget.
TV's Aunt Becky also earned Lori Loughlin a shot at broadcast television glory: several,
in fact.
They just didn't work out.
Immediately after Full House ended in 1995, Loughlin starred in Hudson Street, an ABC
sitcom about a New Jersey detective played by Tony Danza who falls in love with a plucky
crime reporter, played by Loughlin.
Despite airing as a lead-in for monster hit Home Improvement, Hudson Street lasted just
one season.
In 2004, Loughlin starred as a woman who takes in her orphaned niece and nephews on the WB's
Summerland.
Loughlin co-created the series, but alas, it endured for just two short seasons.
Shortly thereafter, Loughlin starred with Jonathan Silverman and David Arquette on In
Case of Emergency, a single-camera comedy about a group of friends who try not to be
losers anymore.
That one spawned just 13 episodes.
Lori Loughlin's last major network TV role to date was as Debbie Wilson on 90210, the
CW's late 2000s revival of the '90s teen classic.
It began in 2008 as a show about the Wilsons, who move from Kansas to Beverly Hills.
The Wilson parents, played by Rob Estes and Loughlin, got less screen time as the show
evolved, much like the parents in the original.
Estes left the show in 2010.
An insider told Radar Online at the time,
Loughlin followed suit a year later, telling Entertainment Weekly,
We get it, but leaving a show in the middle of its run may not be the best career move.
It's been a long time since Lori Loughlin starred on a prominent, top 30 hit show that
aired on a "Big Three" TV network, Full House went off the air in 1995.
In the 2010s, she landed a big role in a long-running series, it's just a little less noticeable
because it airs on a couple of basic cable channels.
Like fellow '90s TV refugee Jason Priestley, who also starred on a string of hit shows
in Canada, Loughlin successfully pursued her fortunes north of the border.
"There's a lot of work up in Vancouver right now, um, much more so than Los Angeles."
Since 2014, she's been one of the leads on When Calls the Heart, a light drama about
life in a tiny, coal-mining town in Western Canada, circa 1910.
If you're guessing that Loughlin plays a matriarch named Abigail who wears some beautiful if
uncomfortable-looking period garb, you are correct.
When Calls the Heart airs on Super Channel in Canada and on the squeaky-clean Hallmark
Channel in the United States.
Speaking of Hallmark…
Since 2013, Loughlin has starred in a whopping 15 entries in the Garage Sale Mysteries series
of Hallmark TV movies.
The actress plays Fenn Shannon, proprietor of an antique shop called Rags to Riches who
also just keeps stumbling across unsolved crimes, which she then solves.
Loughlin also serves as an executive producer for the series, which has at least three more
movies in the can, as of the making of this video.
Like its predecessors, those were set to air on the Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel…
but the FBI bust has apparently put these unaired Garage Sale Mysteries on the shelf…
permanently.
After her arrest, the Hallmark Channel promptly severed all its connection to the actress.
In a statement, the network said it was "saddened" by the allegations, adding,
This just might be the final nail in the coffin for Loughlin's career.
Being banned from the Hallmark Channel?
That's not a good look.
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more NIcki Swift videos about your favorite stars are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.