NEED TO KNOW
- Todd Chrisley reflected on his first night in prison during an interview for ABC News Studios’ IMPACT x Nightline special The Chrisleys: Life After Lockup
- The reality star was joined by his wife Julie, who also served time behind bars after convictions for tax evasion and bank fraud, and their daughter Savannah for the interview
- The Chrisleys: Life After Lockup is now streaming on Hulu and Disney+
Todd Chrisley is opening up about his time behind bars.
Sitting down with Juju Chang for ABC News Studios’ IMPACT x Nightline special The Chrisleys: Life After Lockup one month after he and wife Julie were pardoned and subsequently released from federal custody, the couple recalled their experiences in prison.
“Todd, take us behind bars with you. What was that first night like?” Chang asks.
“I was angry at God,” Todd, 57, replied. “And when I went to bed that night and the lights went out, I cried myself to sleep and I said, ‘God, why are you allowing this?'”
Todd and Julie also reflected on the things they took for granted before being behind bars.
“You don’t realize the things that you took for granted until you don’t have it,” Todd shared. “So your freedom, your ability to go to church, your ability to go out to eat, you know, to stay in your bed all day, those things are taken from you, so when you have them back, it’s a blessing.”
When asked about the “big things” and “little things” she missed while serving her sentence, Julie, 52, admitted, “My children and my husband, you know, I missed birthdays and holidays and graduations and things that I can never get back.”
“So now I just have to focus on what’s ahead of us,” she added.
Todd and Julie were granted full pardons by President Donald Trump in May, and they were both released from their respective prisons the following day.
The couple, who were first indicted by a federal grand jury in 2019, had not seen each other since reporting to prison in January 2023 after being convicted of tax evasion and bank fraud the previous year, charges they have denied.
They were initially sentenced to a combined 19 years behind bars, but later saw their sentences reduced by nearly two years each in September 2023.
They immediately began appealing their case, and while Todd’s conviction was upheld, Julie’s was initially vacated due to insufficient evidence. However, a judge later ruled that her original punishment was sufficient.
In PEOPLE’s exclusive sneak peek of The Chrisleys: Life After Lockup, Todd said he was forever changed by his experience in prison.
“You don’t realize how much your freedom means to you until you don’t have it,” he says in the clip, adding that being incarcerated “has to change you.”
“If it didn’t change you, then you’re not human,” he continues.
Following his release from prison, the patriarch also spoke out what he claimed to be his and his wife’s wrongful conviction in a press conference.
“Even though this pardon has happened, I still was convicted of something that I did not do,” Todd said. “It could be you, it could be you, it could be any of you, and somewhere in this room, someone has had a family member that has been affected by the system. So I understand the shame that’s around it, but I refuse to feed into that, because shame is like a cancer that just spreads, and I have no shame.”
In the teaser, he added, “I don’t have an apology to give you or anyone else over the money that I’ve made.”
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The Chrisleys: Life After Lockup is available to stream on Hulu and Disney+.
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