Todd Chrisley’s May 2025 release from FPC Pensacola has seen the reality star back to cracking jokes about how fabulous he is, and he’s even quipped that he has a post-prison glow going on. However, that’s not to say his time behind bars was a walk in the park. On the contrary, between his kids and his legal team, a number of details of what Todd’s life in prison was really like emerged — and some of what’s been revealed has been downright scandalous. 

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Starting off on the less dramatic side of the spectrum, a few weeks into his prison sentence, Todd’s daughter Savannah Chrisley shared in an episode of her “Unlocked with Savannah Chrisley” podcast that he was fine considering the circumstances. Having said that, she also shared that the situation had forced their family to see what incarcerated people went through, and Savannah mused, “I believe that God put him there to truly make a difference.”

As for what Savannah believed needed more attention, she shared that in her parents’ case, the fact that they weren’t allowed to contact one another at first had been difficult, and she found it problematic that many other incarcerated couples went through the same thing. “It’s sad that we have a system that is not only going to break families apart, break lives apart, but also to, you know, break a marriage apart by not allowing them to speak on the phone,” Savannah said. Granted, at the time of the podcast episode, she shared that they’d been granted permission to email, something she said her father had been both grateful for and emotional about. “I spoke to my dad on the phone, and he just had tears rolling down his eyes, because he got the approval to email my mom,” a teary Savannah shared.

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Next up, we bring you the possibility of a feud behind bars. Todd Chrisley might not have been able to speak to his wife right from the start, but he certainly could speak with fellow inmates — and in an interview on “The Viall Files” with Nick Viall, she revealed that he’d had some choice sentiments for one of his new neighbors when they first started chatting. That’d be Rick Singer, the man at the helm of the celebrity college admissions scandal. 

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“[Singer], like, came up to dad and … told dad he was writing a book, and dad was like, ‘Make sure you don’t leave out the chapter where you snitched on everyone.’ ‘Cause he got a deal for snitching on people,” Savannah recounted. Talk about going in hot. 

Savannah didn’t share whether the two ultimately made nice. However, she did confirm that he’d developed quite the squad for himself with other inmates. Speaking of what she’d been told by some of the other inmates during visitation, she shared, “They’re like, ‘He’s like the president of this place.'” Based on some of what Todd has said in the time since his release, that checks out. In fact, in his post-release press conference, which was attended by “Entertainment Tonight,” among others, he shared that leaving FPC Pensacola had been almost bittersweet for that very reason. Despite his excitement at being pardoned, he teared up, explaining, “All I could think about was the guys that I was leaving behind because I had made such wonderful relationships with those men.” Todd also shared that he’d promised to never forget any of them and was committed to doing whatever he could to bring about greater reforms for those who hadn’t been pardoned.

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While Todd Chrisley became visibly emotional talking about missing the people he’d met during his time in FPC Pensacola, he also cracked a few jokes about his time there. In particular, Todd was only too happy to spill the tea on his post-prison transformation. “I call it the BOP glow,” he told reporters at the press conference. For the uninitiated, “BOP” stands for Federal Bureau of Prisons. 

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Speaking of the fact that he came out of the slammer looking so refreshed, Chrisley mused that his day-to-day likely played a role, as he essentially honed in on his spiritual and physical fitness during his time in prison. “I worked out every morning at 10:45 until 12 with my buddies there, and my walk with Christ became deeper, and I talked to my daughter every day, to Chase, to Grayson … and then was able to email with Julie every day,” he shared of his everyday routine. Granted, Todd also joked that his beauty regimen prior to being locked up may have had something to do with it, quipping, “Maybe it’s the residual Botox that never wore off.”

Jokes aside, Todd also made a point of using his press conference to call out the much more serious reason why some of the inmates he met weren’t able to use the time to invest in themselves the way he had. “I dealt with young African-American males in the prison that I was in that were not treated the same … They were denied programming. They were denied access to certain things. I was not denied that. But we know why I wasn’t denied that,” Todd said. Shout-out to Todd for calling out the racism in the system. 

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Todd Chrisley may have had some privileges over the Black inmates at FPC Pensacola, but it does bear mentioning that early on in his sentence, two of his kids pointed out that the conditions inside both his and Julie Chrisley’s prison were awful for everyone who lived in them. One major gripe? The heat. 

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In an episode of “Unlocked with Savannah Chrisley,” Savannah and Chase Chrisley revealed that there was no air conditioning in either prison. Savannah was quick to point out that no prison would ever be a five-star hotel, nor should they be expected to operate like one. However, she and Chase added that the fact that their dad was in Florida and their mom in Kentucky without air conditioning was a concern. “When your loved one’s sitting there literally having a heatstroke and ending up in a hospital … it’s awful,” Savannah pointed out. 

Savannah reiterated the scandalous claim a few months later, telling the Daily Mail that in addition to her dad being in 100-degree heat in the prison, things had also been taken a step further. “The prison’s locking the ice machines just to retaliate against the inmates,” she said. It’s not clear if the alleged retaliation came in response to something the inmates had done themselves or whether Savannah’s constant updates on her parents’ prison conditions had anything to do with it. After all, she did point out rather ominously later on in the interview, “There’s already retaliation happening because of how I’m exposing things.” Sadly, that wasn’t the last of it, and Savannah claimed in a January 2024 interview on “NewsNation” that her father was still facing retaliation, likely as a result of her comments, and that he’d even been threatened with being moved to a state facility. 

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Savannah Chrisley wasn’t the only one to have addressed the alleged retaliation against her father. Todd Chrisley’s lawyer, Jay Surgent, also made a point of calling out his client’s treatment in prison, which he saw as downright scandalous — and largely as a result of Todd’s celebrity status. 

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Speaking to Fox News Digital, Surgent shared, “Todd Chrisley was singled out in reference to the non-processing of his Cares Act application.” That wasn’t all. Far from it, the lawyer continued, “Someone was allowed to take a photo of him while he was sleeping, and this is a result of his celebrity status.” Making things even more horrifying, that picture was used to blackmail Savannah. As Julie and Todd’s eldest shared daughter told “NewsNation,” she’d received several messages about her dad’s welfare and that the picture of him was among them. The sender had asked for $2600, she said. 

Back to Surgent, another detail he shared with Fox News Digital was the condition of the prison itself. In addition to the air conditioning situation, he told the outlet, “Plumbing conditions are bad, there is mold and fungus everywhere, and again, no one seems to care.” Once again, that’s something Savannah had touched on in the past as well. Speaking on “Unlocked with Savannah Chrisley,” she said she was also aware of lead-based paint and black mold. And, in her “NewsNation” interview, Savannah also claimed that she’d been sent videos that seemed to show that Todd’s life in prison was only getting worse. “There are bugs crawling on the walls … food is expired a year past expiration … it just never stops,” she said. All the more understandable, then, that she was so determined to get him out. 

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Arguably, the most scandalous detail about Todd Chrisley’s entire ordeal behind bars has been the fact that he’s always maintained his and Julie Chrisley’s innocence. As such, we weren’t exactly surprised when he reiterated his claim that he’d done nothing wrong early on in his press conference.

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“Even though this pardon has happened, I still was convicted of something that I did not do. 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 this system,” he said. A little while later on in the conference, he also addressed the fact that Julie had previously apologized — though he made a point of noting that it shouldn’t be seen as an admission of guilt. “Let me explain to you how that works — if you don’t mind. You’re placed in a position as a defendant to either bow down and kiss the ass of the Department of Justice, and accept responsibility for things that you did not do in order to avoid a stronger sentence,” Todd said. All that said, it’s pretty safe to say Todd wasn’t planning on taking the rap for anything. In fact, he also said as much in case anyone doubted it. “Do I have any remorse? I would have remorse if it was something that I did,” he quipped. 

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As for what he was planning on doing about the charges he’d always slammed as false, Todd promised in the conference that his lawyer was on instructions to expose everything. Something tells us the next season of “Chrisley Knows Best” will be the most explosive and scandal-filled one yet.