Todd Chrisley is easily TV's most-opinionated dad right now. The star of USA's Chrisley Knows Best(Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on USA with reruns on E! on Sundays at 10:30) rules his family with iron wit; it's his way or the highway. Todd is a big believer in tough parents. He reads his kids' messages, tracks them with a GPS in their cars and even sent his son overseas on a Red Cross mission for eight months after he found out he was having an affair with a married woman.
The kids—sons Chase and Grayson, and daughters Lindsie and Savannah—do push back and there has been rebellion, but ultimately you can feel the family love. But what would the reality star do with one of the most divisive figures around at the moment, Justin Bieber? And what advice does he have for this father?
The pop singer has had more than a few hiccups with the law recently. The 20-year-old Bieber is set to appear in a Florida courtroom on May 5 to face charges stemming from his January DUI arrest. He was caught drag racing by police in Miami. Bieber also made headlines after recently giving a long deposition for a separate civil lawsuit involving a Miami photographer and a member of the singer's security team.
"I don't know that I would give advice to his father, because his father wasn't present in raising him, so I think that you get out of something what you put in it," Todd told E! News. "So from what I know, and I know nothing about the family other than what I've read, I don't think the dad was present. So the only thing he has is his relationship with his mother and his grandparents, so I think that at this point, you have to truly come together as a family unit and lock arms, and you put that child in the center and say, ‘Listen. This is where you are right now. I don't care if you see it, because if you could see where you are right now, you wouldn't be here. So I'm going to help you get that vision that you need to achieve, and we're going to get you out of the ditch, and we're going to get you back to where you need to be.' But I don't think that you can ever view your child…When is the line drawn between a child and your paycheck?"
Julie Chrisley, Todd's wife, said there's a line between being a parent and being a friend. "I don't want to be your friend, I don't want to be friends with your friends," she said.
"And I don't want to dress like your friends. You don't need to be doing that. And let me tell you something – when I saw your ass, I was wiping it. I do not need to see it now that you're grown," Todd said.
While Todd's kids have rebelled—curfews have been missed and resulted in a boot on the car—he said he still thinks he's "been blessed that I have good kids, but they are normal, regular kids, and they make those same mistakes."
"Our kids are not perfect, and they've made mistakes, they've done things and said things that have hurt my feelings, that I've cried over, and I've prayed about it, and I've said, ‘You know what Lord, you got to lift me up because if you don't, I'm going to have to knock one of these kids out,'" Todd said. "And you know, I haven't caught a case yet, I'm not a felon, so you know, we're still moving forward."
Despite the fact that he's putting his parenting style on display for the world to see, Todd said he's not expecting his show to teach the world how to be Todd Chrisley. "It's hard enough for me to be me. The rest of the world doesn't want all that. I think whoever watches this show, if you take from this show that I'm that same guy that grew up in a small town in a very middle class family that had huge dreams, and a lot of those dreams have come true and a lot of them haven't, and there's been a lot of heartache along the way, but I've been able to overcome that, and through the heartache I've grown, and through that self-growth, my children have been able to grow and benefit from that, so that's what I hope that you take from the show. Is it colorful? I never knew that we were colorful until people started saying, ‘That's so funny. Who does that?' And I'd be like, ‘I do.'"
Chrisley Knows Best airs Tuesdays at 10 p.m. on USA and Sundays at 10:30 p.m. on E!
(E! and USA are both part of the NBCUniversal family.)