“I know what it feels like to not know how you’re going to pay your bills that month,” Savannah said on the Unlocked podcast, opening up about her financial struggles after her parents were sent to prison.
A lot changed when Savannah Chrisley’s parents, Todd and Julie, wenet to prison, including the family’s finances.
On Wednesday’s episode of Savannah’s Unlocked podcast, the former reality star opened up about the hardships she’s faced after following their respective prison sentences.
Savannah’s father, Todd, 55, was sentenced to 12 years in prison and 16 months probation, while her mother, Julie, 51, was sentenced to seven years in prison and 16 months probation in November 2022, after the couple received a guilty verdict for bank fraud and tax evasion in June of that year.
Those sentences have since been reduced, with Julie’s reduced to seven, and later overturned as she awaits a re-sentencing hearing, and Todd’s reduced to 10. The couple was also ordered to pay $17.8 million in restitution
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“People comment and will say, like, ‘Oh, I feel so sorry for you, living off of mom and daddy’s stolen money,” Savannah she told a group of friends on the Sept. 10 episode. “And ‘You’re rich, it’s easy, stop trying to act like it’s so hard.'”
“I struggled,” she continued, “Like, I know what it feels like to not know how you’re going to pay your bills that month. ‘Cause I was left with three mortgages, and the lawyers, and kids.”
In addition to taking over her family’s financial responsibilities, Savannah also became the guardian of two children: her brother Grayson Chrisley, 17, and Chloe Chrisley, 11. Chloe is the daughter of Kyle Chrisley, Todd’s second child with his ex-wife, Teresa Terry, who had been under Todd and Julie’s care at the time of their arrest.
With her parents behind bars and their reality show, Chrisley Knows Best, on hold amid their legal woes, Savannah struggled to make ends meet.
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She’d begun a career in real estate, but as a friend pointed out, the work was time-consuming.
“I was just getting into real estate, and, like, your first year, you’re pretty much, you know, like, working for every deal that you get,” Savannah recalled. “And that’s the thing, it’s like, people have this misconception that I’m sitting on millions of dollars and I’m like, ‘If you know where it is, please walk me to it. I would love to see it.'”
“But I know what it’s like to struggle. I used to not go have to go to the grocery store and look at — I would just buy whatever,” she continued. “I was at a point to where I had to tell the kids no to stuff. And I put their needs before mine. I don’t know how I did it, but somehow I was able to do it.”
Savannah also claimed that the government “fought for” the 3 percent commission she intended to take from selling her parents’ house as a licensed real estate agent until her lawyer negotiated the amount down to a percent and a half.
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“They would not allow me to sell the house if they didn’t get the money,” she claimed.
Savannah has been busy, however, with her podcasts and making various reality TV appearances, including The Masked Singer, and World’s Toughest Test, to help keep things afloat. Having her mom back at mom wouldn’t hurt either, with Julie set to be resentenced on September 25th in Atlanta.
