Behind the Headlines: Felicity Huffman’s Controversial Journey

Felicity Huffman faced charges for paying $15,000 to college fixer Rick Singer in 2017 to cheat on her daughter Sophia Grace Macy’s SAT.

She spoke out about the Operation Varsity Blues scandal, a $25 million bribery scheme revealed in 2019. The scheme involved wealthy parents and celebrities paying to get their kids into top colleges using fake test scores or pretending they were athletes.

"It felt like I had to give my daughter a chance at a future," Huffman said in an exclusive interview with KABC in Los Angeles. "And so it was sort of like my daughter’s future, which meant I had to break the law," she added.

Huffman admitted to contacting Rick Singer, the college counselor behind Operation Varsity Blues, but stated she never intended to break the law.

"After a year, he started to say your daughter is not going to get into any of the colleges that she wants to," she said as per 'NBC'. "And I believed him...So when he slowly started to present the criminal scheme, it seems like — and I know this seems crazy at the time — but that was my only option to give my daughter a future. I know hindsight is 20/20 but it felt like I would be a bad mother if I didn’t do it. So, I did it," Huffman added.

In September 2019, she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud. Huffman was sentenced to 14 days in prison, 250 hours of community service, a $30,000 fine, and one year of supervised release, which she completed in October 2020.

On the day of the SAT test, Huffman shared that she was overwhelmed with fear, knowing her daughter was unaware of the plan to alter her score.

"She was going, 'Can we get ice cream afterwards? I'm scared about the test. What can we do that’s fun?' And I kept thinking, turn around, just turn around. And to my undying shame, I didn’t," the Oscar nominee said as per 'NBC'.

Huffman described feeling shocked and in disbelief when the FBI showed up at her door. "I thought it was a hoax. I literally turned to one of the FBI people, in a flak jacket and a gun, and I went, 'Is this a joke?'" she recalled.

"They came into my home. They woke my daughters up at gunpoint. Again, nothing new to the Black and brown community. Then they put my hands behind my back and handcuffed me and I asked if I could get dressed," Huffman said as per 'NBC'. Shortly after, the scandal became public, and Huffman quickly found herself at the center of media