Pardoned reality TV star Todd Chrisley says prison opened his eyes to injustices in the system

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Pardoned reality TV star Todd Chrisley said Friday that the experience of being in prison has changed him, vowing to not forget the men he met and befriended their and to work to make their lives better.

“You can’t go through what we’ve been through and walk away from it,” he said at a news conference in a Nashville, Tennessee, hotel two days after his release. “As bad as this experience has been, there’s also been a lot of blessings to come from it. I have met some wonderful men. I have listened to some horrific stories about things that have gone on in our system.”

Convicted on fraud and tax charges, the “Chrisley Knows Best” star maintained his innocence, saying he and his wife Julie were victims of a corrupt prosecution. He said they will detail the proof of the wrongful conviction in an upcoming television show.

“We’re blessed to have our family back, and we’re blessed to be coming back to television because we have a much bigger story to tell now than we ever have,” he said.

Addressing whether his family’s fame and connections helped him and his wife get a pardon from President Donald Trump, Chrisley said, “It’s not something you can look at and say that had nothing to do with it. I don’t know if it did or it didn’t.”

His daughter Savannah Chrisley, also speaking at the news conference, was adamant that it was her hard work that won the day. She has been a staunch Trump supporter and endorsed his candidacy while also speaking about her parents in a speech at the Republican National Convention last summer.

Todd Chrisley described the experience of watching his daughter’s work from a distance as being “consumed with pride while at the same time knowing that this is a longshot, because so many people are told, ‘No.’”

He said he recognized that the conditions at the minimum-security prison camp in Pensacola, Florida, where he was held were relatively good, and that even there the privileges were not evenly distributed.

“It’s important to understand that I was at a camp,” he said. He was able to work out every day, walk a track, email his wife and talk to his children.

“Being in the prison system, anyone that says that it’s a fair shake — it’s not. Because I dealt with young African American males in the prison that I was in that were not treated the same. They were denied programing. They were denied access to certain things. I was not denied that. But we know why I was not denied that,” he said.

Chrisley said his time in prison deepened his “walk with Christ” in addition to opening his eyes to many problems in the prison system.

“God has said when you know better you do better,” he said. “And it’s our job at this point to expose all of that and to try to make those men and women’s lives better if we can.”

“Chrisley Knows Best” ran from 2014 to 2023, chronicling the extravagant exploits of the boisterous, tightly knit family of the couple and their five children, from high-end cars to luxury vacations and stunning mansions. It was recorded in the Atlanta area at first and then in Nashville. In 2019, the show spawned the spinoff “Growing Up Chrisley,” which featured the couple’s children Chase and Savannah living in Los Angeles.

The Chrisleys were indicted in 2019 under a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney and found guilty by an Atlanta jury in 2022. A panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld their convictions last year. Until this Wednesday, they still had years left on their sentences: Julie Chrisley was expected to be released in 2028, and Todd Chrisley in 2032.

In addition to their prison sentences, the couple had been ordered to pay $14 million in restitution that they will no longer owe, attorney Alex Little told reporters Friday. He said the government had seized some money from the Chrisleys but he believes it was less than $100,000 and that it was unclear whether any of that would be returned.