The Hallmark Channel cut ties Thursday with favored star Lori Loughlin, a day after her arrest in a college admissions scam put the family-friendly network and extended Hallmark brand in uncomfortable proximity to a national scandal.
"We are saddened by the recent allegations surrounding the college admissions process," Hallmark Cards Inc., parent company of the Crown Media Family Networks group that includes the Hallmark Channel, said in a statement.
Loughlin's career and the Hallmark Channel were deeply intertwined. She's been among its so-called"Christmas queens" who topline a slate of popular holiday movies, and also starred in the ongoing"Garage Sale Mysteries" movies and the series"When Calls the Heart." Loughlin has not yet entered a plea in the case, and her attorney declined comment Wednesday after her first appearance in a Los Angeles federal court. Loughlin's publicist declined comment Thursday on Hallmark's decision to drop her.
"They definitely have a formula and you do have to follow the formula. And if you don't, they rein you back in and say, 'You have to follow. This is our format, this is what we do,'" Loughlin said in an interview last year with The Associated Press about the Christmas movies. Then came Tuesday's bombshell government allegation that Loughlin and her husband were among more than 30 parents who paid a consultant to ensure their offspring's place in college with bribes and falsified exams. Prosecutors allege the couple paid $500,000 to have their daughters labeled as crew-team recruits at the University of Southern California, although neither is a rower.
Misbehavior may be unusual in the Hallmark world but is nothing new for Hollywood, with the fallout from sex and other scandals affecting celebrities and companies. But the white-collar crime Loughlin is accused of is akin to that of another unlikely scofflaw: Martha Stewart, who was convicted in 2004 of obstructing justice and lying to the government about a stock sale.
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