Erin Andrews – Health Magazine USA July/August 2017 Issue https://t.co/ku9sWQyKJy pic.twitter.com/o8HrrGSjKD
— juststarz (@juststarz) June 15, 2017
From the trial to a cancer diagnosis, here's how @ErinAndrews found strength in the most difficult year of her life. https://t.co/KtdwO2DENw
— Emily Kaplan (@emilymkaplan) January 24, 2017
Thanks for all of the Twitter love. Touched by how many are touched by EA's story. A little backstory on the piece.. https://t.co/dBmfXb9v0Z
— Emily Kaplan (@emilymkaplan) January 24, 2017
Thank you @usatoday pic.twitter.com/Sxc46rt7Uw
— Erin Andrews (@ErinAndrews) September 19, 2014The September issue of @goodhealth is available today! pic.twitter.com/BbdSvjrpM8
— Erin Andrews (@ErinAndrews) August 15, 2014Thanks to @ELLEmagazine for visiting the football field w/ me! http://t.co/gXSegV6uGJ http://t.co/qSIu7re5ov
— Erin Andrews (@ErinAndrews) January 23, 2014Richard Sherman needs to ingest some of that legalized weed and just chillax.
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) January 20, 2014"Just saw your video. Wow, you are on fire doing your hair naked!"Bill O'Reilly also played snippets, in fact. He defended it as news reporting when called out. Oh boy, those were the days. Cynthia Yockey is still mad, but not really about Erin Andrews (she attacks conservatives for being against gay marriage, which is lame, since you can't really be conservative and be for gay marriage, hint, hint). And Cassandra's no longer blogging, tsk, tsk. That said, I'd do things differently the second time around. Live and learn.
That's an incoming tweet to Erin Andrews. It hits her iPhone while she's on a trip to Tennessee, preparing to host a country-music benefit for tornado victims. She gets about a dozen such tweets a day — continual reminders of the video that went viral two years ago this summer, when a stalker removed the peephole of her hotel-room door, then stood in the hallway and filmed her for several minutes in the nude ...
*****
How did you cope psychologically with the knowledge that strangers would be seeing you in the nude?
That was the hardest thing. Despite what I do for a living, I am very insecure about my body. I don't have a complex, but for every woman — I don't care who you are — there's a part of your body you have issues with. It was my body, and I didn't have a choice of how many people got to see it. What people don't understand is that while I wasn't physically touched, I was violated.
The day that I got the phone call that this was on the Internet, I didn't want to get undressed. I didn't change my clothes for two or three days. I was so screwed up. I was disgusted with myself; I was disgusted with my body, with being naked, and that everybody saw that it was me. I stopped going to my gym for six or seven months because I was afraid of people seeing me working out. I had this mind-set of, "Oh, my gosh, everybody's seen me naked and they're going to think to themselves, She should be so embarrassed."
The first site to run the video was in Europe. Then a sports blog linked to it — and rumors spread that you might have been behind the whole thing.
Yes, the perception right away was: She's doing this as a sex tape. She's doing this for publicity. News sites claimed they showed the video because it was "news." These news outlets were having so much fun with it. The New York Post put the images from the video up on the front page. The Early Show played clips on their show. Fox News showed stills. It was disgusting. My poor dad was watching this. He had to go on medication, he was so upset watching what was happening to his daughter.
PREVIOUSLY: "Erin Andrews in the News."
It's no surprise that Erin Andrews feels unnatural on Dancing with the Stars — not because she has never danced, but because she's a self-described tomboy. "I'm sitting here looking at my face and seeing what all this makeup has done to me. It's like, 'Aaahh!'" she tells TVGuide.com. "There are just some things that you're not used to." The ESPN reporter, who will compete despite receiving death threats, is also not used to playing a character, but is determined to show off some acting skills in Monday's waltz. See who's been helping her out, why Dancing has been a "perfect release" after everything she's been through, and if Maksim Chmerkovskiy really does smell amazing.There's an interview at the link.
Sometimes the best thing a reporter can do is just stand still, blend into the surroundings. And wait. And watch. And wait some more.My previous exclusive coverage of Erin Andrews is here.
It was two years ago in the middle of November in Tucson, Ariz. Erin Andrews had been alerted in her ESPN production meetings with anchors Chris Fowler and Craig James that the Oregon quarterback bore watching. Dennis Dixon was, by most accounts, leading the race for the Heisman Trophy. His Ducks had beaten USC and, despite a loss, were No. 2 in the BCS rankings.
But Dixon was hurt. The blazing fast but spindly QB had partially torn the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee two weeks earlier. And though he was allowed to play at Arizona, Fowler and James had heard the knee was shaky.
Sure enough, Dixon went down on a scramble early in the game. He hobbled to the sidelines and received treatment.
This is where a sideline reporter either earns his or her money – or doesn't. Every second counts, and is being counted, back in the studio. Viewers want to know what's up – now.
As she usually does, Andrews earned her keep that night. “James calls me 'the little flea,'” Andrews said during a Monday phone interview from her home in Atlanta. “Trainers can try to hide injuries. I don't care. I'll go around the other way. I love it. It's kind of like I'm snooping, like I'm a detective."
On this night, the UO people were not all that restrictive. But there are certain borders that cannot be crossed, even by personnel from the Disney corporation that pays handsomely for the right to have them on the sideline. Andrews had to wait and watch.
“Arizona's winning this game but I'm not even on their sideline because this kid who was leading the Heisman race was down. This became our story. I don't leave his side. I stood behind him and watched every interaction he had.
“I watched the trainer. I watched [UO coach] Mike Bellotti come over and his reaction. Those were my reports: 'You can see it on his face. He's upset. He's frustrated. He hasn't even moved to try to loosen up.' Those were the hints I could give. Because the guys upstairs couldn't see that. And we couldn't have a camera on Dennis Dixon the whole time.”
Finally, Andrews got the payoff she was waiting for – the smoking gun that Dixon was done:
“There was a moment where the trainer came over and he got big tears in his eyes. And I said to the producer, 'Holy crap. Come to me! Come to me! The trainer just got tears in his eyes. This kid's done. And he's done for the year.'”
Andrews never did get anything official from Oregon. But all she needed to do was relate what she saw. She told viewers moments later that there was no official update. But that the UO trainer had just given Dixon a big hug and was crying.
“I just left it at that. And Chris and Craig just said, 'Wow.'”
For a sideline gig, it was a remarkably static night, standing in one place for half an hour. Much more often, Andrews does whatever's necessary. Running from one side of the field to the other. Sticking her head near assistants' sideline huddles to overhear chalk talks. Reading lips.
“For everybody who thinks it's all fluff and 'They're not needed,' I would love them to come down and try it and see,” she said. “I'm a marathon runner down there.
Sportscasting siren Erin Andrews faced her convicted stalker in court for the first time and pleaded with a judge to show him no mercy.My previous coverage of the Andrews case is here.
The ESPN beauty broke down in tears Tuesday when she first spotted peephole perv Michael Barrett.
Minutes later, the Illinois insurance executive stood before a federal judge and admitted he hunted Andrews down at hotels in three cities and shot naked videos that he posted online.
"I am a victim of this sexual predator. I would like to see him immediately put in prison for as long as possible," Andrews, 31, told the judge.
She said she fears for her safety as long as he's free.
"I have nightmares," she told the court.
"I walk in crowds and I see him in my peripheral vision. When I'm alone in my house, I have fears that he's going to walk inside and hurt me.
"I don't know him. I've never met him. I don't know why he chose me. But I hope he never sees the light of day again."
Barrett, 48, faces up to five years in prison when he's sentenced Feb. 22. His plea agreement recommends about two years. Andrews wants the maximum.
"My career has been ripped apart, which I've worked very hard for," she told Judge Manuel Real.
"I am subjected to crude comments and suggestions that I have partnered in a crime," she continued. "I walk into stadiums, and fans say obscene things to me."
Barrett avoided eye contact with Andrews and pleaded guilty to one felony count of stalking.
He admitted he secretly rigged peepholes at hotels in Ohio, Tennessee and Wisconsin in 2008 and secretly shot the videos.
Andrews said outside court that she's coping by throwing herself back into work.
She said she puts on her broadcast headphones and blocks out everything but the football game she's covering.
"Day by day, it's getting better," Andrews said.
It's interesting that Deadspin would only devote two sentences to the story. Readers may recall that, way back in July, it was Deadspin that first sent the Andrews peephole story into orbit. All kinds of recriminations followed. Sports columnist Jason Whitlock once ripped into the webzine, suggesting that:
Deadspin has been the world-wide leader in sexually objectifying Erin Andrews (ESPN actually trails Deadspin in this category) and in invading the privacy of athletes and members of the sports media, so it is not all that surprising that its editor, AJ Daulerio, would throw the match on gasoline poured by a peephole pervert. Daulerio has since apologized, sort of. Daulerio's original enabler and co-conspirator, Will Leitch, the former editor of Deadspin, offered his apology on Tuesday.The Daulerio "apology" is here: "Sometimes This World Is A Horrible Place To Live." He writes:
If this story becomes covered in the mainstream media — chances are it will, that press release went out everywhere; even the French are intrigued— there's inevitably going to be some backlash against the sports blogosphere. Unfortunately, we'll get hit pretty hard if some blog-centric finger-pointing ensues as to why this happened. Considering the enormous amount of coverage we've devoted to Erin Andrews throughout, oh, the site's existence, we're obviously an easy target if that type of Princess Diana-paparazzi discussion takes place.Will Leitch's apology was more to the point, and truly remorseful, "Erin Andrews and Guilt, Imagined and Otherwise":
To be fair, both during my time as editor and Emeritus' time, most of our coverage has been tongue-in-cheek — covering the coverage of America's Sideline Princess. Some people get that, others don't, and see any and all coverage of Erin Andrews as exploitative and voyeuristic in its own way. But it's important for people to know that I don't think anybody who's been part of the Erin Andrews pageview gravy train thinks what's happened is funny or is elated that this will be good for business. Will this change things? It has to. If covering Erin Andrews made this site — and plenty of other sites — look like pandering fools, any cheesecake coverage from here on out creates an additional, unnecessary layer of sleaze.
Regardless, this is a different, legitimate news story now — this isn't her getting whacked in the chin with a baseball, or her wearing a revealing dress to the ESPYs, or college kids posing for photos with her or her eating a sandwich. This is real and disorienting and just frighteningly sad. I apologize for posting the site's address in the initial story — I was unaware that, even though the videos were taken down, people could get access to them.
I have never met Erin Andrews. If I ran into her on the street today ... I'm not sure I could look her in the eye. I'm not sure anybody could.This kind of extremely guttural angst lasted for more than a week. I had my share, of course, because I linked to the peephole viddy (initially). It was a mistake, and amid a raging backlash, I took it down. (I have a Google link to my Erin Andrews reporting). But within days the major media were posting snippets of the videos during mainstream news reports. CBS took down its video, but during the broadcast, while court TV analyst Lisa Bloom decried the sexism (similtaneously arguing the perp wouldn't be caught, due to the impossibility of the technology), video clips splashed Andrews' flesh across big screens nationwide. Bill O'Reilly ran raw images as well (always the best comeback to folks who attack "conservatives" for jerking the story for traffic.)
