In a new interview, 2012 Olympic gold medalist and former Team USA gymnast McKayla Maroney opened up about returning to the public eye, intimately sharing how she’s overcome the hardships of recent years.
At age 20, the star gymnast retired, a seemingly sudden decision that confused the sports world. After such an impressive run at the 2012 Olympics, fans expected McKayla to continue on to the 2016 Olympics in Rio. But after being forced to take time off due to a serious knee fracture and enduring an incident that severely affected her public image, distancing herself from the sport appeared to be the only option. In 2014, nude photos that McKayla took as a minor were leaked in a massive hacking scandal dubbed “Celebgate.”
“I was so ashamed, like, ‘Holy sh*t, even my aunt is seeing that now.’ It was so f*cked up,” McKayla told Elle. “When you go to the Olympics, people see you as a little girl and that’s all they want to see you as. Anything else is vile to them. It’s like, ‘How could you? You’re a role model’... I was no longer respected.”
About a year later, McKayla was contacted by the FBI as they began their investigation into former Team USA doctor and now-convicted abuser Larry Nassar. McKayla accused Nassar of molesting her for several years, beginning in her early teens. McKayla made headlines in the fall of 2017 when she issued a public statement on social media, sharing her story as a survivor and explicitly accusing Nassar of abuse.
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In November 2017, Nassar pleaded guilty to seven counts of criminal sexual conduct and admitted to using his influence and position as a doctor to molest gymnasts. Nassar is currently serving a sentence of up to 175 years in prison, after more than 150 women and girls testified at his 2018 sentencing hearing on multiple charges of sexual abuse.
Two of McKayla’s Olympic teammates, Aly Raisman and Jordyn Wieber, were among the women who came forward to give victim impact statements at Nassar’s hearing. McKayla did not attend the hearing in person, but her statement was read aloud for her. In a 2018 interview with Dateline, Raisman and Wieber spoke about the shared trauma they experienced as young girls and teammates, coming back to their hotel rooms during competition and talking amongst themselves about Nassar’s abuse. “We would say, you know, maybe he doesn’t realize he’s touching us,” Raisman said. “Maybe he doesn’t even know what’s going on. And he’s a doctor. He’s the Olympic doctor.”
Recalling one of the first times she was molested by Nassar, McKayla said to Elle, “He was like, ‘You know, to be a great athlete, we sometimes have to do things that other people wouldn’t do.’ Basically, he was silencing me and saying, ‘This is what it takes to be great.’”
“We all talked about it in little ways,” McKayla said. “We never said, ‘We’re being molested,’ but we would say, ‘It’s like we’re being fingered.’ We’d even say it was time to go get fingered by Larry. But we were 13 and didn’t even know what being fingered was at the time. We were really young and naive from living in a gym.”
McKayla has spent the last few years out of the spotlight, trying to rebuild after being forced to relive the trauma of her abuse and unexpectedly losing her father in 2019. The Olympian has been focused on healing from a tumultuous decade that required so much from her — physically, mentally, and emotionally. Now, McKayla feels secure in moving forward with a re-centered spirit and her family’s strength and support.
“I want to be looked at as someone who just keeps going, because that’s what we have to do in this life,” said McKayla. “For so long, I was surviving. Now I feel I’m actually living.”
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Want more from Teen Vogue? Check this out: McKayla Maroney Said She Told Her Coach About Larry Nassar's Abuse in 2011
