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Savannah Chrisley is setting the record straight. The 27-year-old “Chrisley Knows Best” star stood alongside her father, Todd Chrisley, in Nashville on Friday, May 30, to speak publicly for the first time since President Donald Trump issued full pardons for both Todd and Julie Chrisley earlier this week. While the family is celebrating their newfound freedom, Savannah Chrisley took a moment during the press conference to directly address the “gross misconceptions” that have emerged in the wake of the decision.
“Obviously, the biggest misconception right now is that I either paid for a pardon or slept for a pardon,” she said firmly, per PEOPLE Magazine. “If people knew the countless hours and the money and the time that I spent going to D.C., literally with not a meeting scheduled, and I just got on a plane and went and said, ‘I’m going to be in the right room at the right time and meet the right people,’ they’d think differently.”
Savannah Chrisley Says She ‘Fought Hard’
“I fought hard, and I was exhausted, and I begged for meetings. I was never too good to ask,” Savannah Chrisley continued. “People think, ‘Oh, you’re a celebrity, you’re white, you have money,’ that we had some upper hand. We didn’t. I had to fight, and I was relentless, and that’s how it happened.”
While Todd admitted he doesn’t know if their public profile helped their case gain attention from Trump, he acknowledged that it’s easy to understand why the public might assume it played a role. “That’s not something that you can look at and say, ‘Well, that had nothing to do with it,’” he said, noting that he couldn’t be prouder of his daughter’s tireless efforts. “Watching it all unfold, and listening to what she said was coming next… I was just consumed with pride.”
Still, the former reality star used the moment to shed light on deeper injustices he says he witnessed during his time in federal prison. “Being in the prison system… anyone who says it’s a fair shake, it’s not,” he said. “I dealt with young African American males in the prison that I was in who were not treated the same. They were denied programming and access to certain things I was not denied.”
Despite the high-profile nature of their case, Todd took the opportunity to reiterate his claims of innocence. “Even though this pardon has happened, I still was convicted of something that I did not do,” he stated. “It could be you, it could be any of you. Someone in this room has had a family member affected by the system. I understand the shame that’s around it, but I refuse to feed into that. Shame is like a cancer that spreads and I have no shame.”
After Years of Legal Battles, Todd and Julie Chrisley Walk Free
Todd and Julie were first indicted in 2019 on 12 counts of bank and wire fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy. The couple was convicted in 2022 and initially sentenced to a combined 19 years in prison. However, that sentence was later reduced by nearly two years each. Their road to justice hasn’t been easy. Both Todd and Julie pursued appeals, with Julie’s initially gaining traction before a judge ultimately upheld her original sentence.
Now that the pardon is behind them, the Chrisley family is focused on moving forward. Through it all, Savannah Chrisley continues to stand tall. “I know what I did, and I know what I didn’t do,” she said, “and no one can take that away from me.”
