{"id":229231,"date":"2025-07-01T12:01:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T12:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/229231\/"},"modified":"2025-07-01T12:01:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-01T12:01:10","slug":"reality-tv-stars-todd-and-julie-chrisley-defiant-after-trump-pardons-us-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/229231\/","title":{"rendered":"Reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley defiant after Trump pardons | US crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

A reality TV star who was imprisoned for defrauding banks of tens of millions of dollars before being pardoned<\/a> in May by Donald Trump says there is nothing for him to be sorry about.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t have an apology to give you or anyone else over the money that I\u2019ve made,\u201d Todd Chrisley said<\/a> in an interview with ABC News that was posted online Monday.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the network alongside his wife, Julie, who was also imprisoned and then pardoned by the president, Chrisley\u2019s comments were some of his most extensive comments yet about his and his spouse\u2019s abbreviated experiences behind bars.<\/p>\n

He joked that his first post-pardon shower back home was as exciting as his \u201cfirst sexual encounter\u201d. And, as his family begins planning to return to television with a new reality show on Lifetime, he said \u201cit doesn\u2019t matter what someone else\u2019s opinion\u201d of him is.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one\u2019s opinion of me has ever caused me to question who I am at the core,\u201d the former co-star of Chrisley Knows Best said to ABC News. \u201cSo I don\u2019t worry about someone else\u2019s opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chrisley Knows Best aired on USA Network from 2014 to 2023, depicting Todd as a wealthy real estate developer and entrepreneur who was raising a family with Julie in their suburban Atlanta mansion.<\/p>\n

But in 2019, during Trump\u2019s first presidency, the federal government charged the Chrisleys with tax evasion and bank fraud. Jurors in 2022 convicted the couple of defrauding banks of at least $30m, leaving Todd to be sentenced to 12 years in prison and Julie to seven years.<\/p>\n

The couple\u2019s daughter Savannah Chrisley was a vocal Trump<\/a> advocate as he successfully ran for a second presidency in November 2024. Trump then pardoned Todd and Julie on 27 May, a little more than four months after he was sworn back into the Oval Office.<\/p>\n

Trump personally called Savannah to inform her of her parents\u2019 pardons, according to a White House video<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Chrisleys\u2019 pardons freed them from prison after serving less than three years. Their pardons came amid a series of clemencies that Trump gave to supporters in what evidently was a broader rebuke<\/a> against a justice system that had convicted him of criminally falsifying business records months before he retook the White House.<\/p>\n

Some particularly criticized the Chrisleys\u2019 pardons because an appeals court had upheld their jury convictions.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, as ABC News noted, Todd argued that the makeup of the couple\u2019s jury was questionable and the president was right to pardon him and Julie.<\/p>\n

Julie recounted to the network that she had made some everlasting friendships while incarcerated. \u201cI have met some amazing women \u2026 that I will be friends with till the day that I die,\u201d she told ABC.<\/p>\n

Yet, unsurprisingly, Todd said he and his wife were relieved to be out of prison early as they weigh whether to move to South Carolina and film themselves converting a mansion into a hotel.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t realize how much your freedom means to you until you don\u2019t have it,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A reality TV star who was imprisoned for defrauding banks of tens of millions of dollars before being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3937],"tags":[77,382,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-229231","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-tv","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114777875154071407","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}