Chase Chrisley Says Prison Has Been ‘Tough’ on His Parents’ Marriage Because They’re ‘Obsessed with Each Other’

Todd and Julie Chrisley are doing the best they can given their circumstances.

Chase, 27, opened up about how his parents have been coping during their time apart in separate prisons. “It’s over 200 [days] now, which is really tough for them because my mom and dad are obsessed with each other,” he told Extra.

Todd, 54, and Julie, 50, reported to prison in January for fraud. As Todd serves his 12-year sentence at Florida’s Federal Prison Camp in Pensacola, Julie is spending the next seven years at FMC Lexington in Kentucky.

“They’re hanging in there. It’s a terrible situation,” said Chase. “The conditions [of their prisons] are awful and if you read all these headlines they say the polar opposite, but it is not the truth and we’re going to be spreading a lot of awareness to that as well.”

The reality star continued, “Everyone has this perception that my parents are in this country club prison, and that’s just not the case at all.”

The Chrisley family became household names through their former USA Network series, Chrisley Knows Best. PEOPLE recently announced that Chase, Savannah Chrisley, Grayson Chrisley, Chloe Chrisley and Nanny Faye will star in a new reality series from Scout Productions.

The family’s new attorney Jay Surgent of Weiner Law Group LLP later told PEOPLE that Todd will likely “contribute in every way that he can” to the show. But Chase has since told Extra that “there definitely will be times we’ll be on phone calls and going to visit and stuff like that.”

“With everything that we’ve been going through, there’s been a lot of people that have been talking and kind of trying to tell our story for us, so we were like we might as well get out there and tell it ourselves,” Chase added. “We’ll address everything that we’re going through on a day-to-day basis with our new reality. Updates on my parents and our family situation and just kind of trying to navigate the waters of that.”