McKayla Maroney is a United States Olympic gymnast who competed in the 2012 Olympic Games, winning a gold medal in team events, and silver in vault. She has been participating in gymnastics ever since she was a kid and competing for many years after finally retiring in 2016. Recently, Maroney has spoken out about allegedly being abused by her former Olympic doctor, Larry Nassar. Here is her story.
On Wednesday, October 18th, Maroney posted a lengthy explanation on Twitter revealing she had been abused and molested by her former Olympic doctor, Larry Nassar beginning when she was only 13 years old. She starts by saying "this abuse is not only happening in Hollywood, it is happening everywhere."
Maroney recalls a number of times this occurrence happened and shares some details about her abusing. Dr. Nassar allegedly said she was receiving "medically necessary treatment that he had been performing on patients for over 30 years." She mentions again in the post that it started when she was only 13, and didn't end until she had left the sport of gymnastics. She mentions, "it seemed wherever and whenever this man could find the chance, I was treated." She recalls a time, that was the scariest night of her life happened when she was only 15. Dr. Nassar gave her a sleeping pill for her flight with her team to Tokyo, and when she woke, she was getting a "treatment" from him in her hotel room. She claims, "I thought I was going to die that night."
She concludes the article by giving a little insight as to how we can all work together to stop this abuse that happens everywhere. She suggests speaking out and providing awareness, people in power especially need to be held accountable for their actions, as well as educate and have zero tolerance for this kind of abuse.
The article states that Nassar is "currently facing 22 counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct from 125 women" although he won't appear in court until November 27th.
Maroney captioned her post with the rising hashtag: #MeToo, which is empowering more and more people to speak out about their sexual abuse experiences. Sexual assault seems to be a growing occurrence within the news lately and needs to be stopped at all costs.
Maroney ends her post with the statement "Our silence has given the wrong people power for too long, and it's time to take our power back." By standing up and speaking out, hopefully, we can all aid in decreasing the amount of sexual abuse that happens, but more importantly, goes unnoticed.
