Mossimo Giannulli Just Fired Back in the Lori Loughlin Divorce, and His Surprise Move Has Everyone Talking

The divorce of Lori Loughlin and Mossimo Giannulli has been the slow motion split of the year, but this week it took a sharp turn. The fashion designer has formally responded to his estranged wife’s divorce petition, and instead of leaning on the prenup that has defined their marriage since 1997, he asked the court to decide whether spousal support should be payable to either party. The move puts money at the center of a breakup that already had plenty of drama to spare.

Page Six exclusively revealed the filing on October 16, and the details suggest the legal end of this 28 year marriage is going to be anything but quiet.

What Mossimo Giannulli filed

Giannulli, 63, submitted his response in Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday, October 15. Like his wife, he cited “irreconcilable differences” as the reason the marriage must end. So far, so mutual. Then the filings start to tell two very different stories about money.

When Loughlin, 62, filed her petition in September, she anchored everything to the couple’s prenuptial agreement. The actress asked that properties, assets and debts be divided according to that prenup, which the pair signed one month before their November 1997 wedding and amended in August 2015. She also asked that spousal support be determined at a later date, and that each side be responsible for its own attorneys’ fees and costs.

Giannulli took a different path. His response never mentions the prenup at all. Instead, he asked the court to “determine whether spousal support shall be payable to either party upon a request of either party” and to decide “if one party should make a contribution to the other party’s fees.”

That language matters. To be clear, it does not necessarily mean Giannulli is demanding that Loughlin pay him. As legal watchers have noted, the wording keeps the door open for either spouse to request support as the case moves forward. But skipping the prenup entirely is the tell. Loughlin built her filing around that agreement. Giannulli is asking a judge to look at the money question fresh.

The blank line that says a lot

There is another detail in the filing that court reporters flagged immediately. Giannulli left the “date of separation” field blank. Loughlin listed August 31, 2025. It might sound like paperwork trivia, but the date of separation can affect how property and support are calculated in a California divorce, which makes an empty line there genuinely interesting.

The timeline of the split has been public for a while. Last October, Page Six confirmed the couple had separated, and a representative for Loughlin said at the time that the two were living apart with no legal proceedings underway. That changed when she filed in September, nearly a year later.

What happened between those two moments is where the story gets personal. A source close to Loughlin previously told Page Six that she wanted “nothing to do with” her longtime partner, adding, “Mossimo used Lori for years. She was hoping maybe he would change when he got out of prison, but he got worse.”

The same insider claimed the “tipping point” was Loughlin discovering “incriminating” text messages and emails on her then-husband’s phone, and said the couple’s daughters were “completely” in their mother’s corner. Those are claims from one source, not findings from a court, but they set the tone for what this divorce looks like behind closed doors.

The scandal that changed everything

No version of this story makes sense without the 2019 college admissions scandal, the moment that permanently reshaped how the public sees this couple. The pair pleaded guilty the following May to paying a fixer $500,000 to get their daughters, Isabella Rose and Olivia Jade, accepted into the University of Southern California as crew recruits, despite neither of them being rowers.

Loughlin served two months in federal prison and was released in December 2020. Giannulli completed his five month sentence the following April. A source told Us Weekly this past January that the marriage was “never the same” afterward, calling the school scandal a turning point and saying the couple “never really connected or recovered their relationship after that.”

The source added that Loughlin felt Giannulli “got her involved” in the situation, and that she “never fully forgave him and never fully got over it.” It is a heavy backdrop for a divorce filing: a marriage that survived tabloid storms for decades, then quietly crumbled in the years after the worst one.

Where things stand now

Since the breakup became public, both sides have been spotted moving on, at least in appearance. Giannulli has been seen out with much younger stylist Hannah Harrison on multiple occasions. And one day before news of the split broke, Loughlin was photographed embracing actor James Tupper, though her representative told Page Six at the time that the two have worked together in the past and are just good friends.

Now the case moves through the Los Angeles Superior Court process. Both parties agree on the core point: the marriage is over. The fight is about money and terms, not about whether to divorce. Giannulli’s filing also included an order requiring both parties to disclose financial records covering income, expenses, separate and shared property, and outstanding debts, so neither side will be in the dark for long.

The central question is the one Loughlin thought she had already answered with a prenup: will that agreement govern the split of property and support, or will a judge decide those issues fresh? Giannulli just bet, on paper, that a judge should take the second look.

For now, the former “Full House” star and the man she married in 1997 are on the same page about exactly one thing. Everything else, including who pays whom, is up to the court.

Further reading

• Dylan Dreyer confirmed she is officially divorced, and her mom moving in was the sweetest part
• Mia Goth files for divorce from Shia LaBeouf after a decade together
• Whitney Rose’s divorce takes a turn nobody expected

Sources

Reporting verified via Page Six (exclusive, October 16, 2026) and EntertainmentNow (October 16, 2026).