Felicity Huffman says her old life 'died' after college admissions scandal

Felicity Huffman is opening up about the death of her "old life" after her role in the college admissions scandal.

The "Desperate Housewives" actress spoke with The Guardian about the aftermath following her guilty plea in 2019 to paying $15,000 to have her daughter's SAT answers corrected. She served 11 days in prison and said she has hardly worked since then.

"I did a pilot for ABC recently that didn't get picked up," she said. "It's been hard. Sort of like your old life died and you died with it. I'm lucky enough to have a family and love and means, so I had a place to land."

Huffman is married to "Shameless" star William H. Macy, with whom she shares two children. He was not charged in connection with the scandal. In the interview, Huffman said that while it's a "loaded question" to ask how she's doing now, "as long as my kids are well and my husband is well, I feel like I'm well."

Felicity Huffman on college admissions scandal: 'I did it. It's black and white.'

In addition to spending 11 days in prison, Huffman paid a $30,000 fine and was ordered to complete 250 hours of community service. She was one of several celebrities tied up in the nationwide cheating scandal, also known as Operation Varsity Blues, alongside "Full House" star Lori Loughlin, who was sentenced to two months in prison for paying to get her daughters into college as crew recruits even though they did not row.

Huffman said her case is "black and white," stressing, "I did it" in her interview with The Guardian, where she also discussed starring in the new revival of Taylor Mac's "Hir." But she went on to say that while she is not in "any way whitewashing what I did," some people "have been kind and compassionate" to her, while "others have not."

Felicity Huffmansentenced: 2 weeks in prison, $30,000 fine for college admissions scandal

Huffman previously broke her silence about the college admissions scandal in a December interview with ABC7 in Los Angeles, saying she felt she had no choice but to break the law at time because she feared her daughter wouldn't get into the colleges she wanted to.

"It felt like I had to give my daughter a chance at a future," Huffman said. "And so it was sort of like my daughter's future, which meant I had to break the law."

Huffman also apologized in the interview to the academic community "and to the students and the families that sacrifice and work really hard to get to where they are going legitimately."

Felicity Huffman'sfull, emotional statement about her 14-day prison sentence

In November 2020, ABC confirmed to USA TODAY that Huffman would co-star in a baseball comedy pilot, but the show never became a series. Huffman later starred in an episode of "The Good Doctor" in 2023 called "The Good Lawyer," which was reportedly intended to set up a possible spin-off that Huffman would star in. According to Deadline, ABC ultimately decided not to move forward with the series.