If you’re like us, you’re still wondering why Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman allegedly spent a ridiculous amount of money and risked jail time to send their kids to an elite university. Sure, a degree from a fancy university is universally coveted, but don’t the wealthy have lots of other totally legal (if privileged) ways to preserve their legacies? We need the perspective of a Hollywood insider. Forever fave Busy Philipps explained the possible motivations for their criminal spree — and it makes so much sense.
Philipps appeared on the Crooked Media culture podcast Keep It to give us some insight. She says that some actors — many of whom studied acting or didn’t attend college at all — can develop insecurity about the worthiness of their education.
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“In my 20 years of being an actor, I do find that a lot of times, actors in particular of, like, a certain echelon, have a deep insecurity about their own lack of education,” said Philipps. What “certain echelon” is she referring to? Allow Philipps to elaborate: “Meryl Streep would be the kind of actor who’d be like, ‘I don’t know, go to college, don’t go to college, you’ll be fine,’ you know? And [Loughlin’s] like, ‘I’m Aunt Becky, you’re going to fuckin’ college!’” After all, famous actors can earn a lot of money, but they’re the exception and not the rule, and even those who do succeed still feel their education isn’t impressive. Philipps isn’t saying that Loughlin isn’t famous, but she certainly doesn’t have the cultural capital of Yale School of Drama graduate Meryl Streep.
She goes on to note that insecurity can drive parents to push their kids to accomplish something they feel they missed out on. “They put a lot of pressure on their own children to sort of succeed where they maybe did not even try...I don’t know [Loughlin’s] educational background so I don’t know if that’s where she’s coming from. So it’s so super important for her daughter to go to school and graduate because maybe she didn’t?” (For the record, Loughlin did not attend college after she graduated high school.) Given that Loughlin’s daughter, influencer Olivia Jade Giannulli, didn’t seem that stoked about getting a world-class education, it sure seems she went to school to appease mom.
In other words, it’s the classic case of parents living vicariously through their kids. It’s a tale as old as time. You can check out the interview below.