Erin Andrews Tearfully Details How Life Has Changed Since Stalking Incident, Praises Boyfriend Jarret Stoll
Erin Andrews' intense court testimony continued on Tuesday, when she detailed the emotional damage she's endured since naked videos of her taken without her knowledge or consent hit the Internet in 2009.
The 37-year-old sportscaster said she sought psychotherapy a few years after her convicted stalker, Michael David Barrett, was sentenced to two and half years in prison in 2010. The Dancing With the Stars co-host said she also threw herself into her career as a way to forget.
"It was the only way I could push forward," Andrews explained. "As soon as we talk about this, I start crying. But the second I talk about sports, or Dancing With the Stars, it is my happiness, I can escape. If I can do the World Series and pass out the trophy, then people will forget. I feel like if I can go and compete on Dancing With the Stars and make it to the finale, and host the show, and have all this stuff on my plate, then people will forget and, hopefully, I will forget."
But, she admitted that the distraction hasn't worked.
"I understand that I will always have to get treatment for this," Andrews said. "I will always need to go talk to somebody about this.”
"This will always be on the Internet," she continued, adding that she's constantly paranoid that everyone has seen her naked video.
"There will always be a reminder -- every single day."
Andrews said she continues to get negative comments stemming from the incident on her social media accounts daily.
"I'll do a flashback Friday of my outfit that I wore on Dancing With the Stars when I competed with Maksim Chmerkovskiy, and people are like, 'How can you be so sad if you wore this on Dancing With the Stars?' I'm not allowed to have a life and compete on a show and forget for two seconds?" Andrews retorted. "I'm not allowed to go live my life?"
She also said her multiple television appearances aren't as glamorous as they appear.
"Whenever someone says I am glamorous, it is like, 'Come on, really?'" she commented. "Sorry, but for me it is part of my job. Let’s be honest, we go to promote our show. We are up against some pretty heavy competition Monday night. They want us to go to these events. .... Sometimes it's work and it's really fun. It's part of the job. When you say glamorous and red carpet, it is funny. It is work to me."
"I have done interviews and posed on the red carpet, half the time rolling my eyes and being like, 'Can we just go?'" she added.
Andrews is currently living with her boyfriend, NHL hockey player Jarret Stoll. The two were introduced by Andrews' close friend, TV personality and former NFL pro Michael Strahan. Andrews said the negative effects of the stalking incident has definitely affected her relationship.
"I feel really guilty," Andrews admitted. "He [Stoll] didn't know me before this happened. And to try to explain to someone who has questions about why I have trust issues, why I am insecure, why I am humiliated, embarrassed, obsessive about checking the Internet, he doesn't understand."
"And he's an athlete -- he is just like, 'You gotta move on, you gotta go to the next game, leave it alone, who cares what people think?'" she continued. "It's just not that simple. I feel sad because I think he would've loved the girl more that was there before this happened, and I feel very guilty about that. I don't want to talk to him about this. I want to be the easy breezy girl. I want to be the sports girl, the Dancing With the Stars host that he is so proud of. I don't want him to see this."
Still, she said Stoll has definitely been supportive of her, and that she's "very happy" in the relationship. However, she does worry about what she will tell her future children about the life-changing incident.
"What happens when my kids come home from school saying, 'Mom, kids are saying you're naked on the Internet?'" she tearfully worried. "I will have to tell them what happened. 'Mommy didn't do anything wrong, this is who did it, this is why it happened.' The worst part is, someone mentioned the other day, 'Will this still happen when you are 60?' Who will explain this to my grandkids?"
After Andrews concluded her testimony, the defense brought her back on the stand to ask one more question -- if her income has increased since 2009.
"Yes," she replied.
Andrews then appeared to be notably more relaxed after her emotional testimony, smiling and lightly laughing with two of her attorneys.
Monday marked the first time Andrews took the stand in her $75 million civil trial against West End Hotel Partners and Barrett. Andrews' lawsuit stems from a 2008 incident in which she was secretly videotaped naked inside of her hotel room at the Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt University.
Barrett pleaded guilty to altering peepholes and secretly shooting videos of the former ESPN reporter in 2010.
Watch the video below for Andrews' tearful testimony on Monday, in which she detailed how she first found out about the nude videos taken without her knowledge.