Todd Chrisley Says He’d Rather Do ’28 Months’ in Prison Again Than Confront His ‘Most Feared Issue’

Todd Chrisley is getting candid about the most difficult time in his life — and it wasn’t his years behind bars.

On the Wednesday, July 30, episode of his and wife Julie Chrisley‘s podcast, Chrisley Confessions, the reality TV star, 56, revealed the 52-year-old Chrisley family matriarch’s 2012 breast cancer diagnosis was worse for him than being in prison.

Todd recounted how, when he was incarcerated, an attorney said to him, “This has to be the darkest day of your life.” However, Todd disagreed.

“The darkest day of my life was when Julie was diagnosed with breast cancer,” he admitted. “Not the death of my father. It was that day.”

“That still is the heaviest situation I’ve ever dealt with and the most feared issue that I’ve ever dealt with,” he confessed.

The Chrisley Knows Best star said he has post-traumatic stress disorder over the ordeal.

“I would take 28 months at FPC Pensacola any day of the week over that fear because with FPC Pensacola, I had an exit date,” he explained. “But with that diagnosis of breast cancer, I had to live every day wondering when your exit date was.”

“So prison wasn’t the darkest day of my life,” he added. “Cancer was the darkest day of my life.”

Todd noted that he was “already imprisoned” in his mind when he found out about Julie’s illness.

“In my mind, I had already been placed in prison, of when are you going to strike next, and what form will you strike next?” he recalled.

Todd — who was serving a 12-year sentence at Federal Prison Camp Pensacola in Florida — and Julie — who was serving seven years at Kentucky’s Federal Medical Center Lexington — were convicted of tax evasion and bank fraud in 2022. President Donald Trump granted the husband-and-wife duo full pardons on May 27.

The couple’s daughter, Savannah Chrisley, previously discussed her mom’s breast cancer journey in the June 17 episode of her Unlocked podcast.

“I’ll never forget finding out that mom had breast cancer, but she went to North Side Hospital in Atlanta,” she told listeners. “She had a biopsy done, and then my dad was like, ‘No, I have to make sure she has the best care possible.’ That’s when we went to Johns Hopkins in Maryland, I believe, and they said, ‘Hold on, you actually have two spots, not just one.’”

Savannah, 27, also shared how Julie underwent multiple surgeries, including a double mastectomy and a full hysterectomy.

“The side effects were horrible,” Savannah recalled. “She had two or three reconstructive surgeries. She slept in a recliner for what I feel like was probably a year beside their bed with my dad because she couldn’t stand to lay all the way down.”