Julie Chrisley recorded prayers for her children in stuffed animals before going to prison

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Reality TV star Savannah Chrisley shares her mental health journey

'Unlocked' podcast host Savannah Chrisley joins 'Lawrence Jones Cross Country' with details on 'Chrisley Knows Best' stars Todd and Julie Chrisley's plans to appeal their prison sentence.

The Chrisley children all have bears with their mom Julie Chrisley’s voice on them. 

Savannah Chrisley, 27, who has custody of her younger brother, Grayson, 18, and her sister, Chloe, 11, said Tuesday on her "Unlocked" podcast that her mom had originally recorded prayers in a Build-a-Bear that she’d given to Chloe before she went to prison in January 2023 because she and Chloe would always say their prayers together each night.

"And then Grayson had tears in his eyes and he was like, ‘But I want one, too,’" Savannah said. "And Build-a-Bear closed in like 30 minutes, and she, like, raced to Build-a-Bear and made him two, made me one, made Chase one and, like, we all still have it." 

Savannah said she still plays the bear’s recording, "but the kids don’t. Chloe – someone played it the other day and Chloe freaked out and was like, ‘Don’t play it! Don’t play it!’ because she hasn’t listened to it at all." 

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Savannah Chrisley, right, said her mom, Julie, center, gave her children Build-a-Bears with personal messages before she went to prison. (Getty Images)

Chloe is Savannah’s niece, but Todd and Julie adopted her because of her estranged brother Kyle’s substance abuse and troubles with the law. 

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"From an outsider's perspective looking in, I can’t imagine what it was like receiving those but watching y’all for the first time play them to yourselves and listening to it was so heartbreaking," Savannah’s friend Tyler Bishop said on the podcast. 

Julie and Todd Chrisley, who are best known for their reality show "Chrisley Knows Best," were sentenced to a combined 19 years in prison in November 2022 on fraud and tax evasion charges. 

Todd was originally sentenced to 12 years in prison, but had two years removed from his sentence. Julie was given a seven-year prison sentence after initially being indicted in August 2019 on bank fraud and tax evasion charges. Her sentence was reduced by 14 months in September 2023.

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In June, her sentence was vacated by an appeals court based on legal error solely in how the trial judge calculated her sentencing. She will be resentenced later this month. 

Friend and podcast producer Erin Dugan remembered going to lunch with Savannah after her parents had turned themselves in to federal prison. 

Savannah Chrisley has custody of her younger brother and sister, Grayson and Chloe, while their parents are in prison. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

"It was just like every piece of the weight of the world was on your shoulders, and we went to lunch, we had like a couple glasses of wine – like I had already accepted, like, I’m not going back and doing work, this lunch is going to be as long as it needs to be – and it was a long lunch, and we got back here, and you just like melted down completely," Dugan said. "But you just – most people are in that situation that you're in could never handle it like you do and break down way more than that. I was happy you were comfortable crying, just cry."

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"Erin was like, ‘Cry, cry, get it out! And I was like, ‘Trust me, I am at this point," Savannah laughed. 

Savannah Chrisley with her parents in 2015 (Rick Diamond/Getty Images for Concert For Love And Acceptance)

"I think it’s such a buildup of energy that you really don’t have any place for it to go, so I think about that as a positive thing when you do get to that point, because I’m like, that needs to get out," she said. 

Savannah’s friend, Holly Waldrup, added that there was "so much denial" that Julie and Todd were going to prison after their sentencing. 

"Nobody accepted the fact that they were going away ‘til they got there," she said. 

Julie Chrisley gave a bear to each child. (Tommy Garcia/USA Network/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

Savannah added that she has since talked to her mom about that "impossible situation" and that Julie told her she wished she had prepared more before turning herself into prison, "because they didn’t do anything to prepare to go, like not packing the kids’ stuff up, moving them, packing their stuff up."

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She said she and her ex-fiance, Nick Kerdiles, who died later that year in a motorcycle accident, packed everything up themselves after her parents went to prison.