Lori Loughlin Returns to TV

Actress to reprise role she had before college admissions scandal
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 28, 2021 4:18 PM CDT
Lori Loughlin Plans Comeback
Olivia Jade Giannulli and her mother, Lori Loughlin, attend an event in 2018.   (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)

With her prison term completed and her daughter already appearing on TV, Lori Loughlin is planning an acting comeback. She'll be featured in When Hope Calls: A Country Christmas, scheduled for Dec. 18 on a new network, GAC Family, Deadline reports. Loughlin will again play the Hallmark character Abigail Stanton. The actress was dropped from the When Calls the Heart series when she was indicted in the college admissions bribery scam in March 2019. The series explained the absence of Loughlin's character by saying she'd gone to see her ill mother "back east."

Loughlin, 57, who rose to fame on Full House, also lost a gig on Netflix's Fuller House. She served nearly two months in a federal prison in the admissions scandal and was released at the end of 2020. Loughlin's husband, Mossimo Giannulli, served several months in the case. One of the daughters they were trying to get into USC, Olivia Jade Giannulli, is competing on the current season of ABC's Dancing With the Stars.

The network announced at the time that it had stopped all productions involving Loughlin. But the executive producer of the Hallmark series, Brian Bird, signaled before long that that could change, per US Weekly. The mythical "Hope Valley is a place of second chances," he tweeted last September. "We believe that. Not just for stories but for real life too. Everybody deserves second chances." (Loughlin's daughter first said there was nothing wrong with what her parents did, then conceded, "We messed up.")

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