Phil Mickelson Admits He Hired the Company Behind the College Admissions Scandal
Professional golfer Phil Mickelson has admitted to using the services provided by William “Rick” Singer’s company to help his children get into college, embroiling himself in the celebrity college scam which has been making headlines all week.
Singer is believed to be the ringleader of the entire scandal. Mickelson claimed that while his family did indeed pay Singer’s Edge College & Career Network, they received advice on the admissions process and nothing else.
“We, along with thousands of other families, hired he and his company to help us guide through the college application process,” Mickelson told the press, who had assembled outside the TPC Sawgrass scoring building at the Players Championship this Thursday.
“We’re probably more shocked than anyone,” he continued, “and we’ve been dealing with it the last few days, but that’s about it.” He later reaffirmed this in a tweet, adding: “We are shocked by the revelations of these events. Obviously, we were not part of this fraud, our kids would disown us if we ever tried to interfere.”
Mickelson, who has won three Masters titles and five major championships on the PGA tour, is one of the first male celebrities to be implicated in the scandal. Former NFL quarterback Joe Montana has also been forced to issue a statement about his connection to Singer, claiming that his family received admissions guidance from Singer’s company, and nothing more.
“Montana’s name became linked to Singer after a 2014 Facebook post from one of Singer’s companies trumpeted his work with the former quarterback,” the San Francisco Chronicle reports.
“Mr. Singer’s company provided nothing more than minimal consulting services to our family, like so many other families, with the college application process,” Montana tweeted on Thursday. “Fortunately, our kids were able to pick from a number of schools to attend due to their hard work and their merit.”
Actresses Lori Laughlin and Felicity Huffman are the two most high profile celebrities to have been apprehended by the FBI this week, in the incredulously named “Operation: Varsity Blues.” Both women have since been released on bond, although Laughlin was promptly dropped by Netflix’s Fuller House and the Hallmark Channel.
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