'It's a bad week for Lindsie,' Todd said on his podcast.
Todd Chrisley has broken his silence following news of his daughter, Lindsie's, divorce. After Lindsie, 31, took to Instagram on Tuesday to announce that she and her husband, Will Campbell, are calling it quits, her estranged father reacted to the breakup on his podcast, Chrisley Confessions.
Lindsie and Will started dating in 2009 and eloped in 2012. They share a 9-year-old son, Jackson.
Todd shares Lindsie and her 29-year-old brother, Kyle, with his ex-wife, Teresa Terry, whom he divorced in 1996. Todd is estranged from his two eldest kids, but has relationships with Chase, 25, Savannah, 23, and Grayson, 15, whom he shares with his wife of 25 years, Julie.
"We wake up this morning to an announcement that Lindsie has made on her Instagram account, that she has chosen to end her marriage to her husband, Will, after nine years," Todd began on the podcast, before sharing why he decided to speak out after previously stating that he wouldn't comment on Lindsie and Kyle's personal lives.
"The press has reached out to us for a statement. They're wanting me to comment, and I'm not commenting to the press," he said. "I'm going to put it in my own words, so therefore it cannot be twisted or contorted or however you want to do it."
Todd, 52, continued by stating, "I want to be very clear that it is a very sad day."
"This is the news that I went to bed with last night and that I prayed about and that I woke up again this morning with these press requests," he said. "I do not wish a divorce on any family, certainly not after going through one and watching what it did to Lindsie and Kyle. So I certainly was not hoping to see that pattern repeated."
He went on to praise his son-in-law, stating, "Will Campbell has always been a good provider to my daughter and to my grandson. He and his family have always been very supportive of Lindsie and Jackson, to the best of knowledge, which is very limited."
"As the world knows, we don't have a relationship," Todd said of himself and his daughter. "Lindsie does not communicate with our family, we don't reach out to Lindsie. It's always done through some kind of tabloid story or what have you. There is no communication, so therefore they can't be fighting when there is no communication. But it's a sad day."
Above all, Todd said, "I hate it for Jackson."
"The times that I've been around [Will] with Jackson he was a great father," Todd said. "To the times that I have witnessed, which have been a handful of times, his family with Jackson, they have been wonderful grandparents and are really the only grandparents that Jackson knows and has a relationship with. And the only family, really, that he has a relationship with."
"I hope that that will continue, because that's what he has in his life. That's what he's been given. It's what Lindsie and Will have been consistent with, maintaining that relationship with Will's family," he continued. "I hope that will continue... because I want Jackson to have as little disruption as possible."
Todd noted that, because "the only knowledge that I have is what I have read," he will not comment on the matter further.
"They will continue to remain in my prayers as they always do," he said of Lindsie, Will and Jackson. "I pray for all of my children every day, every night before I go to bed, every morning when I raise my head, so I will continue to do so."
Todd and Chase went on to discuss some of what led to Lindsie's estrangement from the family, when she left their reality show, Chrisley Knows Best, in 2017. Todd and Julie accused Lindsie of turning them into the authorities over alleged tax evasion, which she denied. The couple was cleared on the state level in 2019, but are facing similar federal charges.
Amid Todd and Julie's legal woes, Lindsie claimed that her dad and Chase blackmailed her with an alleged sex tape. Todd previously denied those claims, and did so once again on his podcast, stating, "No one ever tried to extort anyone."
"That's just a lie... It was just not true," Chase chimed in. "At the end of the day, people are going to say what they want to say, a lot of lies will be told, and, I mean, it is what it is. At the end of the day, I know who I am. I know what I stand for. If Lindsie's listening, Lindsie, I love you. I know we've had our differences, but if you ever need me, if Jackson needs me, if Will needs me, I'm here. You can reach out."
Todd went on to reflect on his estrangement from his eldest child.
"When you're the parent, you love them all equally. You love them all the same," Todd said. "Lindsie always felt like -- this is based on her statements from her own podcast -- she was on the outside looking in. I never saw that. None of us ever saw. But I guess it's not up for us to see it."
"I have five children, and I love them all dearly. I wish that this had never happened. I wish that the friction between Lindsie and her siblings and the jealousy that's involved there, I wish that had never happened," he continued. "I don't understand it. I don't understand how these kids can come from the same household, be given the same thing, and be loved the same way... and then you have one that loathes all of their other siblings."
Todd added, "Lindsie's made it very clear that she doesn't have a dad... I raised her, so I claim her. She's made the statement that she has no siblings. You do have siblings. You have four. We don't pick our family, we pick our friends. A lot of times, if we could pick our family, we wouldn't end up with the people that's in it."
All in all, Todd said, "It's a bad week for Lindsie."
"No I did not know that Lindsie and Will were separated. I did not know that they were living in the same house and living separate lives. I didn't know any of that," he said. "All the things that the press is asking me about now... I didn't know any of this. Lindsie and I have been estranged now for several years. We do not speak. We have no form of communication, nor does she have any communication with any other member of this family. So, no, we did not know that."
"Our prayers go out to you," Todd concluded. "We love you. We wish you, and Jackson, and Will, and the entire Campbell family nothing but the very best."
As for Lindsie, she said in her Tuesday Instagram post that she's "focusing on the new beginnings ahead & a fresh space with the move this week."
Watch the video below for more on the Chrisley family.
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