Adrienne Banfield-Norris talks ‘frustrating’ RTT interview with Olivia Jade
'There’s just a lot of education she needs to do for herself'
Adrienne Banfield-Norris is speaking out about her “frustrating” Red Table Talk interview with Olivia Jade Giannulli.
The 21-year-old influencer appeared on the hit Facebook Watch series last month to break her silence about the college admissions scandal, which both her parents, Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli, were at the center of.
“It was frustrating, but at the end of the day, I felt like people understood how I felt,” Banfield-Norris, 67, said on the Keep It podcast, PEOPLE reports. The Red Table Talk co-host called out Olivia Jade during her appearance on the virtual series and pretty much told her to check her white privilege.
Read More: Lori Loughlin’s daughter Olivia Jade talks college bribery scandal on ‘RTT’
“There were some things about it that were a little frustrating. I felt like as a 21-year-old young adult, that she needed to be way more aware of what’s going on in the world, and that was a little frustrating,” said Banfield-Norris.
“I heard people make comments, like, ‘Well, kids don’t watch the news.’ Please. The news on TV is not the only place where you understand what’s going on with the world and if you think that then you’re old! Because young people are not relying on the news — my generation is not relying on the news. I’m on my phone, on social media all the time,” she added.
theGrio previously reported, Loughlin, 58, and her fashion designer husband, Mossinmo Giannulli, 57, were sentenced in August by a federal judge for paying a half a million dollars in bribes to get their two daughters, Olivia Jade, 21, and Isabella Rose, 22, into the University of Southern California. Loughlin, best known as Aunt Becky in the sitcom Full House, is serving a two month sentence in a Northern California federal prison while Giannulli recently began his five month prison stint.
Olivia Jade appeared on Red Table Talk to dish with Banfield-Norris and co-hosts Jada Pinkett Smith and Willow Smith about the aftermath of her parents’ arrests. The conversation left Banfield-Norris feeling like the young woman still has a lot of learning to do.
“There’s just a lot of education she needs to do for herself,” she said. “But I understand that that’s the world they’re in. Her life experiences have not put her in the space where she needs to be concerned about those kinds of things, really. I don’t really know how to address that because it is about how you’re raised and what you’re exposed to.”
Read More: Red Table Talk confronts Lori Loughlin’s daughter on her ‘white privilege’
During the episode, Banfield-Norris asked Giannulli, “Do you understand why different people in the community would be upset? Do you have any understanding of why I would be upset at your being here and what you all did and the harm that it caused?”
She also noted how “ ironic” it is that Giannulli chose three Black women to reach out to for her redemption story.”
“I feel like here we are, [a] white woman coming to Black women for support when we don’t get the same from them,” she said. Banfield-Norris added, “Her being here is the epitome of white privilege to me.”
Loughlin reported to prison on Oct. 30. She is serving a two-month sentence at FCI-Dublin in Northern California.
Her husband is reportedly housed in isolation at a federal prison near Santa Barbara in California. He is serving a five-month sentence and is expected to be released in April.
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