Todd and Julie Chrisley were taken down by one of their own, at least that’s what two of their children are alleging.

In last week’s episode of their family’s new reality series, The Chrisleys: Back to Reality, Savannah and Grayson say their estranged half-sister Lindsie was cooperating with investigators and her actions led to their parents being sent to prison.

“During the sentencing we learned that before they tried to reconcile, Lindsie wrote to the FBI,” Savannah said in the episode. “The moment the prosecutors read the letter, my dad broke and just tears were just falling on the table, and I was sitting to where I was diagonal so I could see him. And it was the most heartbreaking thing in the entire world. Not only was he looking at federal prison for, potentially, the rest of his life, but also his child helped to put him there and the government put emphasis on that that day, and I will never forget his face. It was heartbreaking.”

According to documents obtained by The Daily Mail, Lindsie reached out to the Georgia Department of Revenue (GDOR) in 2017 only after her father and stepmother had already learned they were under investigation by the agency because she was worried about what a case against the Chrisleys could mean for herself and her son, Jackson.

“Then she just started saying what a horrible person her father was and how sick and tired she was of him and Julie getting away with stuff,” a source told The Daily Mail. “She wanted everyone to know they were just the worst people.”

The source later said, “As the investigation went on Todd suspected she had spoken and was calling her a snake and saying things like she ‘needed to be careful.’”

As far as Savannah’s concerned, though, her half-sister went to the authorities because of jealousy.

“I know for a fact there was resentment that my parents were together and we had our, like, nuclear family, and they just didn’t feel like they were a part of it,” she said in a confessional interview about Lindsie and her brother, Kyle.

Bill Rawlings, a friend of Todd’s, agreed in his own confessional interview on ‘Back to Reality.’

“Lindsie and Kyle did not always behave and do things in the manner in which Todd would like,” he said. “They were rebellious kids. There was a lot of jealousy then with based on the lifestyle that Julie’s biological kids had versus what they had.”

Tensions came to a head in 2017 during filming of Season 5 of Chrisley Knows Best, with an incident between Lindsie and Julie that led to her leaving the show and separating herself from the family.

Lindsie and her half-sister disagree on the details.

“I remember vividly one day she and my mom got into an argument because Lindsie went to wake up Chloe out of bed to do a social media post with her and Chloe was already in bed,” Savannah said in her confessional interview. “Now, if someone were to do this to Lindsie’s child she would have gone berserk, and so my mom went to my dad, told her, ‘This can’t be happening, Chloe’s on a schedule,’ and Lindsie just started going absolutely insane, yelling, screaming, calling my mom every name under the sun, ‘You stupid f’ing, blah, blah, blah,” and at that point that’s when Lindsie’s time on the show came to an end.”

In her interview with the FBI, Lindsie (referred to by her former married name Lindsie Campbell) said Julie was the instigator in their fight and that it was due to stress from the GDOR investigation.

“Campbell believes this was either the day of, or the day after, a storage unit of Todd’s was seized by the Department of Revenue,” the interview transcript read. “Julie seemed on edge that day and was very rude to the crew. Campbell believes Julie was upset about the storage unit being seized.

“Later that day, Julie got mad at Campbell for reading a bedtime story to Campbell’s niece [Chloe],” the transcript continued. “Julie got in Campbell’s face, grabbed Campbell’s neck and slapped her in front of Todd and the film crew. Campbell was embarrassed and told Todd that she could have Julie arrested and that this would not end well.”

Lindsie didn’t end up filing charges, according to the transcript, because she learned from her attorney that all the crew members who witnessed the incident had signed non-disclosure agreements and were “going to back up Julie’s story because they were afraid of losing their jobs.”

Around this time, Lindsie claimed her father, half-sister and half-brother Chase had learned of the existence of a supposed sex tape featuring Lindsie and former Bachelorette contestant Robbie Hayes, and were threatening to release it via cryptic social media posts.

Whatever the cause, the two sides agree that they didn’t speak for about two years. According to the FBI’s transcript, various family members began reaching out to Lindsie in 2019 regarding the case. These conversations with investigators made Lindsie Public Enemy No. 1 to her family.  

“In my opinion, she was hell-bent on bringing it all down, and, boy, did she succeed, or at least she thinks she did,” Savannah said on ‘Back to Reality.’

In an interview from prison aired on ‘Back to Reality,’ Todd contrasted his feelings about Lindsie talking with investigators to his feelings about Savannah’s efforts to secure his and Julie’s release from prison.

“The irony of the situation is I had one daughter that participated in sending me to prison and one daughter that has worked tirelessly to bring her mom and daddy home. So I could choose to be resentful. I could choose to have anger in my heart. I could choose to hate, but by doing that it diminishes the true value of Savannah and all the hard work that she put in, I’m not willing to do that,” he said.

For their part, Todd and Julie’s children aren’t willing to look past what they see as their half-sister’s betrayal, acts that she didn’t make up for by coming to courthouse the day their parents’ verdicts were read.  

“And I looked at her and I said, ‘Don’t, don’t, those are crocodile tears. Like, you got what you wanted at the end of the day. I’m not going to be able to spend time with my parents, they’re going to prison for 12-and-a-half years,’” Grayson recalled in a confessional interview. “I said, ‘Don’t ever speak to me again. Don’t text me, don’t call me, don’t anything. I don’t even want you to send a damn smoke signal. Act like I don’t exist because I’m going to be doing the same thing with you.”

Savannah shares her brother’s feelings.

“Sorry, but we don’t want anything to do with you,” she said of Lindsie. “I don’t feel sorry for you. I don’t have sympathy for you, and, while you’re at it, lose our last name.”

That wish has been granted. Back in July, Lindsie revealed on her podcast The Southern Tea that she had started using her boyfriend’s last name Landsman, as The Ashley reported.

“In fact, it became very problematic with me being associated in any capacity in business and has been problematic for projects that I have done post-‘Chrisley Knows Best’ and have been asked to go by another name altogether,” she said.

(Photos: Lifetime; Instagram)