A comprehensive chronology of Todd and Julie Chrisley’s ascent and descent, spanning from their reality TV stardom to their 19-year imprisonment for bank fraud and tax evasion.
Todd and Julie Chrisley burst onto the reality television scene in 2014 when “Chrisley Knows Best” debuted on the USA Network.
The couple rose to reality TV fame in 2014 with the premiere of their reality TV show, “Chrisley Knows Best.”
The show centered around Todd, a real estate mogul, self-made millionaire, and father with dreams of opening a department store with his real estate company, Chrisley & Company.
While the department store never panned out, Vice reported that at the time of the show’s launch, Todd Chrisley felt “fashion was his calling.”
The focus of the reality series then shifted focus to Todd’s life at home with his God-loving, straight-talking wife, Julie, and their large brood, comprised of children Lindsie, Kyle, Chase, Savannah, Grayson, and granddaughter, Chloe.
“While their lifestyle is over-the-top and their personalities are larger-than-life, the Chrisleys are a very close-knit family who are refreshingly honest and genuinely funny,” a spokesman for USA Network said ahead of the show’s premiere, the New York Daily News reported.
For the first half of the series, the family lived in a 30,000-square-foot mansion north of Atlanta and then relocated to a $3.4 million home in Nashville, Bravo reported in 2019.
Before the series was canceled in light of Todd and Julie’s convictions, it spawned several spinoffs, including “Growing Up Chrisley,” which followed kids Chase and Savannah; “According to Chrisley,” an after-show hosted by Todd; and “What’s Cooking With Julie Chrisley,” a cooking web series hosted by Julie.
The series depicted them as a picture-perfect Southern family with everything money could buy. But just two years prior, Todd had filed for bankruptcy.
The show did not mention Todd’s financial struggles but showcased the family’s immense wealth and extravagant spending habits.
“In a year, we sometimes spend $300,000 or more, just on clothing,” Todd boasted to cameras in 2014.
However, in a court document from August 2012, the businessman said he had just $55 in a checking account and $100 in cash, after filing a petition for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection for almost $50 million.
One of his lawyers at the time, Robert Furr, told People that while Todd had $4.2 million in assets, he had racked up nearly $50 million in debt, partly due to poor real estate investments.
According to People, along with the business debt, Todd had several mortgages totaling $12 million, a $4.4 million loan from his wife, and a delinquent IRS bill for almost $600,000.
Per the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a judge in the case granted Todd’s request for relief and erased $20 million of the debt in 2012.
Between 2013 and 2016, the Chrisleys did not file any tax returns or pay taxes, the US Attorney’s Office said.
At the Chrisleys’ November 2022 sentencing, the US Attorney’s Office said the couple neither filed tax returns nor paid any taxes for the 2013, 2014, 2015, or 2016 tax years.
As Business Insider’s Haven Orecchio-Egresitz reported from the courtroom, from 2013 to 2016, the couple made $6 million from “Chrisley Knows Best.” The money from the show was paid to the Chrisleys’ company, 7C’s Productions, but was not declared as income in federal tax returns.
“It’s clear that Mr. and Mrs. Chrisley were starring in a TV show and they were compensated handsomely as a result,” US Attorney Byung J. BJay Pak said in a press conference when the couple was indicted in 2019. “That money was hidden from the IRS.”
