Felicity Huffman is breaking her silence about the 2019 college admissions scandal, which saw her briefly incarcerated.
In an interview with ABC-7 Eyewitness News, the Oscar-nominated actor, 60, opened up about her role in the wide-ranging criminal conspiracy, dubbed "Varsity Blues," in which wealthy parents, including celebrities like Lori Loughlin, were accused of cheating and bribing to get their children admitted to top colleges.
"People assume that I went into this looking for a way to cheat the system and making proverbial criminal deals in back alleys, but that was not the case. I worked with a highly recommended college counselor named Rick Singer," Huffman said, referring to the ringleader of the scheme. He was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in federal prison in January.
"I worked with him for a year and trusted him implicitly," the "Desperate Housewives" star continued.
"And he recommended programs and tutors and he was the expert. And after a year, he started to say, 'Your daughter is not going to get into any of the colleges that she wants to.' And so, I believed him."
Huffman paid $15,000 to have her daughter's SAT answers falsified. She served 11 days in jail for the scheme in October, 2019. Huffman's husband, William H. Macy, was not charged for any wrongdoing.
In her interview, Huffman placed the blame on Singer.
"When he slowly started to present the criminal scheme, it seemed like — and I know this seems crazy at the time — that that was my only option to give my daughter a future," she told the outlet.
"I know hindsight is 20/20 but it felt like I would be a bad mother if I didn't do it. So, I did it. It felt like I had to give my daughter a chance at a future," she said. "And so it was sort of like my daughter's future, which meant I had to break the law."
Huffman did not tell her daughter Sophia about the scheme. Sophia retook the SAT and got into Carnegie Mellon University, while Huffman's younger daughter, Georgia, is attending Vassar.
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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