The actor's wife, Felicity Huffman, was among 50 people charged in a massive college admissions cheating scam earlier this week.
William H. Macy may be starting to regret some of his past comments on giving his and Felicity Huffman's daughters a "leg up" in Hollywood, in light of the recent college admissions cheating scandal.
Huffman was among 50 people charged in a college admissions cheating scam earlier this week for allegedly paying money to help get the couple's eldest daughter -- 18-year-old Sofia -- into an elite college. She was arrested without incident on Tuesday, appeared in court a few hours later on charges of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and honest services mail fraud and was released on a $250,000 bond.
Back in 2004, Macy spoke to ET about the benefits of nepotism in Hollywood at a junket for his film Cellular. "One can help your children in this business, and the nepotism works, and I have no problems with it," he said of potentially helping his daughters to succeed in the business if they ended up choosing that career path. "If I can give them a leg up, I absolutely would. It's a great way to make a living. It really is."
Huffman has deleted her social media accounts in the wake of the scandal, and is next due in court in Boston on March 29. However, fans of the couple's career have been quick to point out art imitating life -- including an SAT scam on Macy's Emmy-winning show, Shameless, and a Desperate Housewives storyline in which Huffman's character, Lynette, offered to pay a $15,000 "donation" to get her twin sons into a prestigious private school.
In the case of their real-life scandal, court documents claim that after Huffman made a charitable donation of $15,000 to Key Worldwide Foundation (KWF), Sofia was given extra time to take the SAT, and received a score of 1420, up approximately 400 points after the proctor corrected her answers.
In a February interview with Men’s Journal, Macy, 69, said that the best advice he’d ever received was to “never lie.”
“It’s the cheapest way to go. Lies cost you a lot, and they’re never worth what they cost,” he explained.
The actor also spoke out against lying when talking politics with ET at the Bobby premiere in 2006. "There's a kind of person who thinks it's alright to lie a little bit for a greater good, but people who lie a little bit for a greater good are called liars and that's the end of it," he explained.
See more on the college admissions scandal -- in which Fuller House star Lori Loughlin and her husband, Mossimo Giannulli have also been charged -- in the video below.
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