Desperate Housewives star Felicity Huffman has finally spoken out about her brief incarceration after paying to falsify her daughter’s exam results.
The Oscar-nominated actress, 60, spent 11 days in prison in October 2019 after paying $15,000 to have her daughter’s SAT exam answers improved in order to get her into a top college.
She was not alone and several other wealthy parents of high school students - including fellow celebrity Lori Loughlin - were charged and convicted.
Huffman’s husband, fellow actor William H. Macy, was not charged.
In an interview with ABC-7 Eyewitness News on Thursday, Huffman spoke for the first time in detail about the scandal
In the interview, she spoke about her relationship with Rick Singer - who is widely believed to be the ringleader of the scheme - who was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in federal prison in January for his role in the scandal.
She said: “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.
“I worked with him for a year and trusted him implicitly.
“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.”
“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 continued: “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. And so it was sort of like my daughter’s future, which meant I had to break the law.”
Her daughter Sophia was not told about the scheme.
She has since retaken the SAT exams and was accepted to Carnegie Mellon University.
Huffman’s younger daughter, Georgia, attends Vassar and was not caught up in the scheme.
