Sportscaster Erin Andrews is looking back on her 2010 nude photo scandal.
“Back in the day … I had this disgusting person following me around cities,” Andrews, 48, recalled on the Wednesday, September 2, episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast. “It was very well-publicized where College Game Day was going to be, where Thursday Night Football was going to be, and I didn’t have an alias [at my hotels.] I didn’t think I was a big deal.”
She continued, “Who cares about what name I’m checking under? And that’s, as you know, the sad realities of what we do for a living.”
Michael David Barrett pleaded guilty in 2009 to stalking Andrews, altering hotel room peepholes and taking nude videos of her. He was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, while a jury awarded Andrews $55 million in damages in 2016 after she sued Barrett and the hotel where he had filmed her.
Years before the legal battle, Andrews found out through a friendly blogger that they had heard about a “naked video of [her]” circulating online.
“I called my mom and dad right away. I was screaming, crying because it was me and it was me naked in a hotel room walking around. I just [had an] out-of-body experience, started screaming,” she recalled to podcast host Alex Cooper. “My dad said when I called, he thought I was in a car accident ‘cause I was screaming so hard. We talked about how much I love the job, how I liked being the ‘girl next door.’ And I just said to my dad, ‘It’s over. My career’s over. Like, no one’s going to take me seriously ever again.’”
Andrews, who was proud that many viewers wanted to “have a beer” with her throughout her earlier sideline reporting career, thought the footage would affect how she would be perceived.
“I just thought, ‘This is so dirty. No one’s going to ever want to work with me again, talk to me again. This is gross. This changes who I am,’” she added. “It was a lot that I put my family through with all of it. It was a lot legally, [and] it was wild.”
While Andrews is now removed from the scandal, she acknowledged that “there are parts of it that [are] still with” her.
“[I just felt] gross, like, wishing in my own hotel room I had worn a towel,” she said. “Like, you’re getting ready for a game. What are you talking about? [Also, I felt] shame. I remember walking around stadiums … thinking everybody in the stadium has seen me naked, and I didn’t have a choice.’”
To deal with the scandal at the time, Andrews dutifully returned to work.
“My safe place, and I am so proud of this, was the football field, which is wild because you’re sitting there and you’re reporting to 20 million people, and how is that your safe place?” she said. “But it’s been for a lot of stuff. I mean, the week I was diagnosed with cervical cancer and then had to have a pretty evasive surgery, they said, ‘Don’t go on the field and stand on the field ‘cause you’re not really capable physically.’ I was like, ‘This is my safe space. So, that’s how I dealt. I threw myself right back into work.”
