In a new movie, titled The College Admissions Scandal, Lifetime tackled the infamous college admissions scandal that took the internet and the nation by storm earlier this year. However, the movie did not have any reference to either Lori Loughlin or Felicity Huffman by name.
The movie, which has been exclusively made for TV audiences, aired on Saturday, October 12. Instead of mentioning anything about Loughlin or Huffman, the movie followed the journey of an interior designer named Caroline (played by Penelope Ann Miller) and a single mother named Bethany (played by Mia Kirshner).
However, in the movie, both women are seen paying bribes to conman Rick Singer, who promised to help their respective kids get admission in a respectable college. Singer, as per earlier reports, was arrested in March this year.
Singer's role in the movie is the only real-life character that Lifetime incorporated in their rendition of the scandal after it was revealed through court documents that Singer had taken hefty sums of money from several parents on the pretext of getting their children admission into elite universities.
The movie's director, Adam Salky, earlier revealed to LA Magazine why the movie did not have any real families depicted in it.
"We looked at all the families involved and we kind of said to ourselves, 'What kind of people were part of this? There were people connected to Rick, people who want the kids to go to those kinds of schools, people who had a certain socioeconomic level,' and we really actually tried to avoid any similarities to anyone specific with regards to the families," Salky explained.
However, he seemed pretty proud of having Singer as a character in the movie. "Rick Singer is a real character in our film. ... I think Rick was able to make parents feel like they could have some degree of control over the process and that was the power that he was selling," he mentioned.
As for the fates of Loughlin and Huffman, Loughlin pleaded not guilty to the fraud and money laundering charges pressed upon her and husband Mossimo Giannulli. On the other hand, Huffman pleaded guilty paying $15,000 to Singer and was sentenced to 14 days in prison on September 13.
