When it comes to Lori Loughlin making fun of her past, these days it’s just par for the course.
The actress, 59, appeared as herself on the Sunday, March 10 episode of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm, where she made an obvious reference to her involvement in the infamous 2019 college admissions scandal, known as Varsity Blues.
In the episode, avid golfer Loughlin seeks the support of Larry David after having difficulty gaining admission to ritzy country clubs in the wake of the scandal.
After David, 76, goes to bat for the Full House actress — with a speech inspired by the Gettysburg Address, no less — Loughlin is welcomed to his club with open arms.
However, once Loughlin and David hit the links together, it’s immediately clear that she hasn’t learned her lesson.
Loughlin uses a fake medical diagnosis to park in a handicapped spot and gain access to a golf cart, bribes the country club staff to get a better tee time, and even lies about her scorecard.
According to Curb Your Enthusiasm executive producer Jeff Schaffer, the potential storyline was raised with Loughlin in mind.
“We had a lot of ideas we wanted to do, but we asked Lori first,” Schaffer told The Hollywood Reporter. “We pitched the general concept of: ‘You get into the club, and then we find out how ultra-competitive you are, and how you’re willing to bend the rules or break them.’ And then once she agreed, we really started hammering out the details of the script.”
When they got in touch with Loughlin about the role, the actress said she was “totally game,” and the Curb team couldn’t have been happier with the finished product
“She was so great,” Schaffer said. “Everything we threw at her, she was game to do. She makes the episode. I’m so glad she wanted to do it.”
Loughlin has returned to television in Great American Family movies like Fall Into Winter and Blessings of Christmas, both released in 2023, and reprised her role of Abigail Stanton in 2021 on Hallmark Channel’s When Hope Calls, a spinoff of When Calls the Heart.
Schaffer is optimistic her Curb Your Enthusiasm appearance will only lead to more opportunities for Loughlin in the future.
“I hope it helps her career,” he said. “She was great, and she should work. She was really funny and wonderful to work with. People should see, ‘Oh, she’s really funny. She’s great in this stuff.’ So yeah, I hope she does get to work because she deserves to.”
In May 2020, Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit fraud in connection with the college admissions bribery scandal. The couple paid $500,000 to have their daughters — Isabella, 25 and Olivia Jade, 24 — accepted into the University of Southern California through the rowing team, despite neither of them competing in the sport.
Loughlin served a two-month prison sentence and was released in December 2020.
