Lori Loughlin, who rose to fame playing Aunt Becky on Full House, is ending her 29-year marriage to Mossimo Giannulli. The split comes roughly six years after both served months in prison for their roles in the college-admission scandal, after paying $500,000 to facilitate their daughters’ admission to USC as purported crew recruits, even though neither daughter actually worked on the crew.
Given the breadth of the leaks, and the fact that they’re all coming from Loughlin’s side, it appears she might be using the divorce as a chance to rehabilitate her public reputation.
“The school scandal was a turning point, and they never really connected or recovered their relationship after that,” an insider told Us Weekly in January 2026. “She felt that he got her involved. She didn’t fully blame him, but he spearheaded it. She never fully forgave him and never fully got over it, and they were never the same after.”
No-Fault Means Bad Acts Generally Don’t Matter
People subsequently quoted another source saying friends were “rallying around her.” “They do not like him,” the source said of Giannulli. “They are very angry with him.” Whether that is an accurate account of what happened inside the marriage is impossible to know from the outside. Neither Loughlin nor Giannulli has publicly stated a reason for the split.
But here’s the reality from a divorce-law perspective: bad acts generally aren't relevant to dividing marital property. New York is a no-fault divorce state, and family-law courts generally don't revisit a marriage's interpersonal wrongdoing when deciding who gets what. The media and the public may have an appetite for the salacious details, but family-law judges generally don't.
There is an important exception. If marital assets were actually spent in committing the bad act, that can be a different story. New York's equitable-distribution statute expressly permits a court to consider “the wasteful dissipation of assets by either spouse.” N.Y. Dom. Rel. Law § 236(B)(5)(d)(12). “Wasteful dissipation” isn't defined in the statute, so courts apply the doctrine case by case. But emotional misconduct, infidelity, and other interpersonal bad behavior generally aren't a basis for altering the division of marital assets.
That makes the Loughlin-Giannulli leaks interesting, but not necessarily because they would matter to a judge. Loughlin may be using the hardly veiled accusations that Giannulli was more responsible for the college-admission scheme as a negotiation tool. For example, she could agree to stop making such allegations in exchange for more favorable treatment in the division of assets, perhaps through a negotiated confidentiality or nondisclosure provision.
Or her strategy may simply be damage control for a tarnished “Aunt Becky” reputation. Either way, the financial story is considerably more interesting legally than the blame game.
The Postnup Role in a Long-Term Marriage
Loughlin's 2026 divorce filing identifies a prenuptial agreement signed in October 1997, approximately a month before the couple's November 27 wedding. The filing also says the agreement was amended in 2015. (Fox News) ABC News reported that Loughlin's petition asks that their property, assets, and debts be divided according to those agreements, while reserving the issue of spousal support for future determination. The details of either agreement are not publicly available.
TMZ reported, citing sources with direct knowledge, that Giannulli insisted on the prenup and that he was worth more than $100 million at the time of the marriage. That $100 million figure isn't independently verified, but a Los Angeles Times article published just weeks after the wedding provides some contemporary evidence of the couple's financial circumstances. It reported that Giannulli owned a mansion in Laguna Beach and had purchased a 9,000-square-foot Bel-Air house for $1.2 million the previous year. Loughlin owned a home in Westwood. The article also reported that Giannulli had purchased all the lots on an entire street at the Pelican Hill project, where he planned to build a home. Since Giannulli had substantial assets before they married, it’s reasonable to presume the prenup would’ve protected Giannulli’s fortune.
We don’t know why the couple amended the prenup in 2015. In a high-asset marriage, financial realities can change dramatically over 10, 20, or 30 years. A massive increase in one spouse's wealth, the launch or sale of a business, a major change in liability exposure, a new inheritance, or a significant change in the couple's estate plan can all create reasons to revisit an asset-protection plan. An amendment can ensure that the agreement reflects the couple's current financial reality rather than the circumstances that existed when they were newly married. If a couple didn’t have a prenup, they can create such an agreement after marriage, which is known as a postnup.
The “Gray Divorce”
For older couples with long-term marriages, it’s sometimes called the "Gray Divorce" since without custody battles or parenting schedules to hammer out, the entire case hinges on the numbers.
People's financial lives can look radically different 10, 15, or 20 years into a marriage. Businesses change. Assets appreciate. Careers change. Children grow up. One spouse may become the primary earner while the other steps away from work. New real estate may be acquired. Businesses may be sold or created. Estate plans change. Tax laws change. And sometimes the couple's own understanding of what they want their financial relationship to be changes.
Another complication in a marriage lasting nearly three decades is commingling. Even with a valid prenup, separate property can become hard to distinguish from marital property over a long marriage. Separate inheritances, premarital investments, or independently owned businesses can become entangled with marital assets through shared accounts, joint contributions, refinancing, transfers, or years of combined financial activity.
That is where asset tracing becomes important: determining what separate property existed at the start, what became marital property, and whether the couple's agreement still provides the protection it originally intended.
A key point about postnups is that courts scrutinize them more carefully than prenups. Unlike a prenup, which is negotiated before marriage, a postnup is negotiated after the marriage exists, and the couple owes each other a fiduciary obligation of trust and loyalty. New York courts therefore scrutinize these agreements carefully, including the circumstances in which they were negotiated and whether there was coercion, overreaching, or unfairness.
In a recent 2026 case, Zubli v. Sakizadeh, the New York appellate court reiterated that postnuptial agreements must be fair and equitable, without fraud and duress. In that case, the parties were married in 2012. They executed a postnup in 2015 stating that in the event of divorce, each person would retain their separate property brought into the marriage. The court found that the plaintiff owned significant separate assets acquired before the marriage, and the defendant possessed none. Among other issues, the court found that the defendant gained nothing from the agreement, which made it appear inequitable on its face. The appellate court sent the case back to the lower court for a hearing to determine whether the “totality of the circumstances” showed the postnup was unfair.
The terms of the Loughlin Giannulli 2015 amendment to their prenup have not been made public. Since Loughlin’s divorce petition asked the court to rely on both the 1997 prenup and the 2015 amendment, the 2015 negotiations likely treated her fairly. Among the factors a court looks at to evaluate equity in a postnup are:
- Did each spouse have independent counsel?
- Was there meaningful financial disclosure?
- Was the agreement presented as an ultimatum, with one spouse threatening divorce?
- Was there a significant disparity in bargaining power?
- Was there a legitimate reason for entering the agreement?
- Was the agreement dramatically one-sided?
The Loughlin Giannulli divorce reminds us that even carefully negotiated financial agreements may need to evolve as a marriage progresses. Changes in wealth, business ownership, or other financial circumstances can make revisiting a prenup or considering a postnuptial agreement an important step toward protecting your assets.
Whether you're looking to update an existing agreement or establish new financial protections, the experienced New York matrimonial attorneys at Bikel Rosenthal & Schanfield can help. Call 212.682.6222 or contact us online to discuss your options.