Lori Loughlin has committed career suicide with college admissions scandal
Lori Loughlin has just committed career suicide.
Her alleged involvement in the seamy Varsity Blues college admissions criminal scandal has forever tarnished her reputation as the folksy face of Hallmark Channel and its vanilla-sweet TV movie franchises “When Calls the Heart” and “Garage Sale Mystery.”
She’s been a cash cow for the cable network with her top-rated movies, but she’s on notice now. Don’t be shocked when Hallmark Channel casts her aside, dealing a death blow to Loughlin’s career.
Her fall from grace sounds like the plot of a weepy Hallmark Channel movie that no one would believe, but it’s all-too-real. In her fictional, TV alter-ego universe, Loughlin bounces back, stronger than ever and ready to take on the world.
In reality? That won’t happen.
It doesn’t really matter if Loughlin and her husband, millionaire clothing designer Massimo Giannulli, are eventually found innocent. The court of public opinion has spoken, and it’s come down heavily against the actress as just another privileged Hollywood bottom feeder.
Don’t forget that Loughlin also co-stars as altruistic do-gooder Aunt Becky on the Netflix series “Fuller House,” a reboot of “Full House,” the ABC series that ran for eight years (1987-95) and rocketed Loughlin (and the Olsen Twins) to stardom. Know that Netflix officials and the show’s producers are huddled in an office, wringing their hands and wondering what to do about Loughlin/Aunt Becky. Know that they’re already thinking of ways to write her out of the series, and know that they won’t mess around. Netflix is all about the money and, like Hallmark Channel, Loughlin will play a part in sinking their bottom line.
At least Loughlin was allowed to fly back from the set of “When Calls the Heart” in Vancouver to face the dissonant music in LA, unlike her fellow alleged fraudster, actress Felicity Huffman — who was frog-marched out of her house in handcuffs by FBI agents.
Hallmark Channel officials are tight-lipped, acknowledging only that they’re “aware” of Loughlin’s arrest (duh!) and are “monitoring developments as they arise.” They’re not rushing to judgment … yet. But they will. And it will be sooner rather than later as this scandal unfolds and exposes its seamy underbelly.
Make no mistake: however this turns out, it’s an enormous blow — on the public relations front, emotionally and (bottom-line) financially — to Hallmark, a network that prides itself on fluffy, family-friendly programming, which it sells (very successfully) to advertisers buying onto their bland, greeting-card world of handsome architects, city women fleeing back to their hometowns and finding true love or innumerable sappy Christmas movies. (Loughlin starred in “Homegrown Christmas” in 2018). It’s a world in which crime hardly exists, or if it does, is never very serious — as in Loughlin’s “Garage Sale Mystery” movies, in which she plays antiques-dealer-turned-sleuth Jennifer Shannon. She’s made 15 of these “Murder, She Wrote”-type movies so far (they air on Hallmark Movies & Mystery) and several are in pre-production.
All of Loughlin’s movies have proven very popular and generated hefty cable viewership (on both networks) for Hallmark Channel. That, in turn, translates to advertising dollars. And when any business feels its financial health threatened, it takes action and cuts bait.
Loughlin’s career is sunk. Deal with it.
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