THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Cancel The Culture Of Abuse w/ Sarah Klein

Episode Date: September 7, 2021

SARAH KLEIN’S STORY IS DIFFICULT AND UNSETTLING to listen to, but if ever there was an episode of my podcast you need to hear, it’s this one. You may not know who Sarah is yet, but there's a good chance YOU KNOW HER STORY. Sarah was a competitive gymnast who became the first known survivor of sexual abuse by former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar. SHE WAS 8 WHEN NASSAR BEGAN MOLESTING HER IN 1988. Eventually, Sarah was among more than 150 women who confronted Nassar at his trial. With the help of her testimony and many others, Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison in January 2018. Sarah was also sexually abused by John Geddert, best known at one time as the head coach for the 2012 U.S. Women's Olympic gymnastics team, which featured the Fierce Five, who took home the gold medal in London that year. Geddert worked closely with Nassar, but unlike Nassar, he escaped justice by committing suicide after being charged with two dozen crimes, including human trafficking, forced labor, and sexually assaulting a teenage girl. Sarah, now 40, is an attorney who has helped hundreds of other survivors of Nassar's abuse and has become a STAUNCH ADVOCATE for abuse survivors everywhere. Sarah's horrific experiences are painful, but they are not without PURPOSE. As a survivor, Sarah has FIRST-HAND KNOWLEDGE and INSIGHTS about protecting your children from becoming victims. She shares how your children can SPOT AN ABUSER’S RED FLAGS and what PARENTS AND CONCERNED ADULTS can do to help FIGHT against abuse. We also talk about the long-term effects of abuse on women's lives and how to help someone heal after they’ve gone through this kind of ordeal. Sexual abuse against girls, and boys for that matter, are hideous crimes. It’s difficult to talk about, which means too often it's easy to pass it along as not your problem or my problem. BUT JUST THE OPPOSITE IS TRUE! If you suspect somebody is being abused, you have a DUTY to SPEAK UP and TAKE ACTION to protect those who can’t defend themselves. 👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈  → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ▶︎ INSTAGRAM ▶︎ FACEBOOK  ▶︎ LINKEDIN ▶︎ TWITTER ▶︎ WEBSITE  

This is The Edmila Show. Welcome back everybody. Today's program is important. And I think it can save lives and change lives. And the woman that I get to drink a little wine with today, already had a little and share this wonderful conversation with is Sarah Klein. Sarah is an attorney, she's a sexual abuse advocate, she's a remarkable woman, she's brilliant and she, but you probably know her because of Larry Nasser, she was the first known victim to come forward, not to come forward,

but the first victim of Larry Nasser who was the head of USA Gymnastics, he was the doctor that he was a serial pedophile. And he ended up, you know, there were 500 some odd girls lives that he impacted negatively and ruined. And it was because of women like Sarah coming forward that he finally met some form of justice. And so we're gonna talk about all issues related to that today with this wonderful woman, Sarah Klein.

Thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. It's so good to have you. We've been laughing already off camera. So what is it's very serious topic, though, that we're going to talk about today. So I want to ask you first. I thought it was interesting.

I'm doing the research. And the news comes out that this guy, who had by the way, 537,000 images of children pornography on his hard drives and stuff, this guy was just like so many people that are out there sort of just closeted, ruining people's lives. But it was fascinating to me because you said when you first heard that women had come forward,

you're like, no, not my Larry. Not him, you'd been, evidently, to his wedding. And that it didn't even occur to you as a woman at that time in your 30s that he had actually been abusing you, starting at the age of eight, probably victim number one. So how is that possible that you didn't even process

all those years that you were being abused? Yeah, it's a really hard thing for people to swallow, to say, wait a minute, you were 36 years old, you're an Ivy League graduate, you have all these degrees, you have a JD, and I mean, what do you mean you didn't realize? My answer to that is this started when I was eight years old. The brain is not fully formed until you're 25 years old. Eight-year-old child doesn't even know sometimes how to read, how to, like, put yourself back

in those shoes and it was so normalized. Everybody in the gym had to go back to Larry to receive this treatment. Now, you probably also know our coach, John Getert, committed suicide in February, after being charged with 20 some counts of sex abuse, human trafficking, child abuse, all the things. And so we're in the gym and we're terrified of John Getter. He's a bastard. He said he was even worse than a bastard in some ways.

He's a bastard. He's a nurse. He was a narcissistic piece of who screamed and yelled and hurt us and harmed us. And so our little eight-year-old psyches are so f**king broke down. And then you need to go back to this room and see Larry Nasser, who was the kindest, most loving,

gentle, warm, nerdy, goofy guy. And he's an adult in your child. And he says, lay down here, I'm gonna stretch this, I'm gonna fix this. And all you wanna do is get back out there to impress John. Your whole life rides or dies based on John's mood that day. And so you go back there and you do whatever Larry tells you to do. And because I was conditioned,

starting at such a young age and groomed and loved by this person at such a young age, it never dawns on you 20 years later that he's sexually abusing you. And it was also really couched in this medical treatment. Yes. So his words, his language, his move, it wasn't like, bend over and I'm gonna do that. It was like, I'm gonna stretch you and your hip is so tight in this and that.

And I'm actually helping you. Can I ask you something about that? So to me, your story isn't different than any other story though, meaning, what I mean by that is some of the same principles apply. So people that are pedophiles like this are abusers, they condition. That's a word you use.

That's the first thing I thought of. I didn't think, just candidly, I didn't think, well, how didn't you know? I wanted to understand how our brain sort of works and normalizes an abuse like this. So you were conditioned. But I think people listening is that have children or that you may be listening to this

and wondering whether someone's being inappropriate with you. They are master manipulators creating a normalcy around the environment that they abuse you. Would you not agree with that? They do everything they can. Totally. Their whole life. Totally.

Existence is about getting to get off on whatever it is they do to you. So they're going to try to do everything they can to normalize the situation. In your case, it was athletics. Yeah. I'm stretching you. It'll help your performance. But in fact, what he was doing without being too graphic, he was penetrating you with his fingers vaginally, angling as an eight, nine-year-old little girl. And somehow, even with that, creating a normal sea around the environment for it. So that's one of the things that's a telltale sign that they do. 100% and it's always like, I'm a sexual abuse attorney now,

and you know, representing lots of survivors in high profile cases. And I always say, and I don't wanna minimize anybody's story, but it's always the same difference perpetrator, different, you know, venue. Maybe it's in a school, or maybe it's in a church,

or maybe it's in a church or maybe it's you know, but it's it's the same exact stuff that you see over and over and over. They groom you, they're kind to you, they pay attention to you, they love you, they make you feel special. Then they start to psychologically penetrate you and break you down and where you have a voice like John Getter, saying you're worthless, you're nothing. And so you're so broken. And then it's a control thing. And there's all these different sort of grooming techniques. Same thing. Different day. I was, gosh, it's amazing the way that you say that because I'm picturing different

things. I was at the S.B.s when you received the Arthur Ash, on behalf of yourself and all these other victims, and you did an amazing job, your speeches are all liquid, and then you're telling me today that you wrote it yourself, which makes it even more amazing to me. But I was there, and I'm going to say so I'd never said on the show before, I was listening to you thinking, gosh, that's terrible that that happened to them. And then it did make me reflect on even incidences in my own life. And there was an incident when I was a little boy that I can't completely process. I'm not exactly sure what happened there.

But here I am a 50 year old man and I still wonder what went on there. I was in a locker room after a football game in the seventh grade with a PE teacher guy. I remember him locking the door where the only two guys in there. I remember him kind of tickling me a little bit. And I remember getting unbelievably, my brain can't frankly process if or what happened after that. I don't know, but I do know that I remember it,

and I do know that it made me uncomfortable, and I should have told somebody, and that's, I think one of the lessons you would at least share with everybody now that if you are someone listening to this or you have a child that Tell somebody about this. Is that not yeah one of the main things people need to know tell somebody about it But teach your child the language to be able to tell somebody about it So back in the 80s, you know, I'm eight years old. I've never heard of sexual abuse my red flags never went up

And I can't even say that I red flags never went up. And I can't even say that I necessarily remember feeling even uncomfortable. I just thought it's normal. And 25 years old, Ivy League graduate first year law student, still going back to Michigan State, going out to lunch with my dear friend and going back to his clinic and letting him work on my body and do this and do that. That's a well. And still being penetrated by a Larry F***ing Nasser at 25 years old. My gosh, I did not know that piece. It can happen to anybody.

I talked to a young woman yesterday who became a part of a cult at 19 and was in the cult for seven years. When you're in it and this God-like person who you think loves you is telling you this stuff, it's really hard to decipher. So absolutely, yes, if your red flags go off or your child's red flags teaching them about red flags, teaching them about warning signs is critical,

but sometimes it's not even going to register when you're talking about a brain that is not fully formed. critical, but sometimes it's not even going to register when you're talking about a brain that is not fully formed. And also, by the way, so educational for me to hear that, that that was even ongoing up into your 20s because it was conditioned in the normalcy. So there may not be flags. I've also had people that I coach

that so happened to have been abused, meaning their high profile entertainer for a couple of them I'm thinking of happened to have been abused, meaning their high-profile entertainer for a couple of them, I'm thinking of obviously would remain anonymous that I work with, but that those issues have reared their head. And they were abused, molested as children, young, young children. And one of the things they said was not only was it normalized, but this is something that we're really going deep here, but that it, if in some cases they were shamed or it felt good Yeah, and that that of it feeling good that first experience when someone's

Doing something to you that's never been done to you before makes you even more afraid to come forward about it Or you think it's a normal and good thing because it's not that's not necessarily painful It can be right but not necessarily be that way true That's another piece of it. In your case, it was more athletics and getting ready to perform, but it doesn't always necessarily mean physical pain, I guess is my point. Yeah, I had a teenage client who was a United States figure skater

and her coach in his 40s is having sex with her for years upon years. She's 13, 14, 15, 16. And his sentencing hearing in Minneapolis, the defense attorney said, on behalf of my client, this affair that he engaged in in the judge, Judge Kay Hill, who was also the judge in the Derek Chauvin trial, George Floyd,

he was the same judge in that trial. He said, excuse me. The judge did. Yeah, Judge Keehull said, excuse me, this was not an affair. This was a grown man committing a crime, having sex with a child. And so you asked the child, and she's awesome.

And she's so much better, and she's come through this. But at the time she thought she was in love. She thought he loved her and this is what people he would say, this is what people in love do. This is what adults do. They have sex with each other and that's why we're doing this, right?

So it can be very confusing to the psyche of a child. What about now? What do you, for you, you said you had some fertility issues as reading, what do you think some of the negative impacts are that you're either were aware of or were unaware of that maybe you've come to the surface since this whole thing's come out? Yeah, so you hit on it.

You said I'm a 50 year old guy thinking about this thing that happens to me as a child. The average age of reporting child sex abuse is 52 years old. That has been demonstrated by scientific research. 50 f***ing two years old. And the question is why? Why did I hang on to that for so long? And it's these manifestations of abuse that you're talking about, confusion, shame. Did I do something wrong? Did I ask for it? People turn to alcoholism, to drugs trying to sort of mute the emotion in their body or in their psyche.

And when you do that, when you shove something down into your body, you're going to have physical manifestations. So my body began to attack itself, and I didn't know why. And I had something called endometriosis which is where the lining of your uterus grows on the outside of your uterus and your whole stomach and pelvic, you pelvis up and so I had this major reconstructive surgery. I come out of surgery at 33 years old and my surgeon says to me this is the worst case I've ever seen stage 4, you know, your ovaries, you've lost

almost all of your ovaries except for 10%. You're going to have massive fertility issues, blah, blah, blah. And he says to me, have you ever been sexually abused? No way. Do you know what I said? Oh, no. You said no. I said no.

I said no. I don't know what you're talking about. No, uh-uh. Absolutely not. And now I look it up and there's Harvard Research Endometriosis directly tied. It's an autoimmune, the body's autoimmune response. It's attacking itself, right? And it's severely tied to child trauma, sexual trauma.

I'm going, well, that explains a lot. That explains a lot. What about the Statute of Limitations thing? I'm just processing what you're saying, and that's remarkable to me, the 52 year old part of it. And since it's so late in life, I know part of the work you're doing is the Statute of Limitation. Why is there, I know you're working on extending it or changing it, but why is there any statute

of limitations of any type? I'm just, to me logically, if a crime like that happens, that kind of injustice, that kind of violation of another person, why is there any time horizon to which someone should pay the consequences for that behavior? That's a billion dollar question. It is something I literally deal with every day.

Why the f*** did these even exist? Right. And you can see in some cases, let's say murder, right? There's evidentiary, you know, repercussions of bringing a case 50 years later, and there's no DNA, and there's no blood states, and there's right. But when you look at sexual abuse, and you look at the sexual abuse of a child

and you look at what psychologically and physically goes on when someone experiences trauma, it makes no sense. That statutes of limitations exist. Now, in my opinion, why they exist is to protect powerful organizations from liability. And there's a lot of money that goes into the pockets of certain legislators that keeps them singing the old tune

of maybe it's own constitutional to change it, right? There are all these excuses of why we can't change statutes. Why? Because you're making money for your campaign. You're making money for your issues to be moved forward, right? So it shouldn't be a battle. And it actually, in my opinion, should be federal. There should be some federal mandate, rather than every state having arbitrary statutes

where this state, because it swings a certain way, has great law, this state because it swings the other way, has terrible law. I reside part of the time in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and I worked really hard in New York and New Jersey and also California to get good statutes and to get retroactive windows where someone like yourself could bring a case

for your on behalf of your five or eight year old self, right? But 20 minutes away in Pennsylvania, if you were abused, you're fucked. And sometimes it's the same perpetrator in multiple states. And this contingency of survivors has recourse, but this contingency has none. Tell me how that makes sense. That makes no sense.

And people that typically commit these kind of crimes, there's no age barrier in which they stop. So if they've been getting away with it when they were in their thirties and you run out the same man in his sixties, he's probably still doing the same thing to another child. So, I think this protecting of these big organizations

is true. And I'm not a big identity politics guy, you know, male, female type thing, but also, you know, by the way, both genders abuse people in the list, ignorant, but men do it more than women do statistically. And it almost is something that protects men if I'm get out of jail free cards at some point.

So to some extent, men abuse more than women do, women do the abuse, but also, but it's a thing that I just think we should all be thinking through and getting behind. Why would we ever not want children to feel protected and adults from any type of abuse at any point in their life that they can bring that forward? And why should we strong arm them

into coming forward when they're not ready? And why should we punish them if they didn't come forward in time to have access to the judicial system. How did USA Gymnastics react when you guys first came forward? You could ask how are they reacting now and how did they react when you first came forward? It's the exact same reaction. Nothing has f***ing changed.

Law your up, protect the brand, sweep it under the rug, try to get these women to stop talking, stop doing press, right? It's all lawyer-ed-up, flowery, PR, f***ing. And you have someone like Simone Biles, who is competing with the Olympic rings and USA Gymnastics on her back. And she is saying, these are organizations

that I do not believe in that have never protected me, that threw me to the wolves who I am currently in litigation with. And now I have to go to the Olympics and try to win medals on their behalf when their compensation is directly tied to how many golds she brings home. Crazy.

That's crazy. I thought you were going to tell me that it was really bad in the beginning and it's sort of like we asked you're saying it's still the same place. Nothing changed. We're in litigation, active litigation. I am a plaintiff in active litigation against U.S. age gymnastics and against the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee. Nothing has changed.

Banana's at all. Banana's specifically about Simone. I wasn't going to ask you about this anyway. Yeah. You know, it's fascinating to me because this is the story. It's like the leaves been buried even in the country. Like people, half the people watching the show were like, I know about Larry and Assetter. I'm going to hear more about it today.

They don't even know. They don't know anything. Or they've, I'm gonna hear more about it today. They don't even know. They don't know anything. Or they've heard like a little tiny piece about it. This is still ongoing after 150 women speak up but is trial in one way, shape or form. There's 500 some odd victims. And that's just one dude.

This getter dude, whatever his name is, he was a complete creeper. God, I know he's gone, but he created an environment where you all were almost safer with Larry than you were with him, which is- We were. But in Simone's case, it's fascinating to me. See, she took a lot of flack, obviously,

and there's this defensive, she's getting that thing where she loses direction in the air all day. But I just was thinking because I knew that I wanted to do this with you, I was thinking, the weight, I mean, that all of you were caring, but that she's caring, she's still representing the same organization with all this abuse. She's also a previous metal winner, she's one of the greats of all time, she's caring

the weight of that, she's in the active game, she's got this, why was more of the conversation not centered around this when she was having a few of these issues? She knows why, because the networks that are covering this have been told to bury us. My God. It is the cover-up in this instance. I mean, they destroyed over 500 little girls, but the cover-up in this story is so far much worse

than the crime, the FBI sat on it, the FBI covered it up. The Office of Inspector General put out a report. I mean, this is not me having an opinion. This is a fact put out by the Office of Inspector General that the FBI buried it and they never picked up the phone. Once they knew that Larry NASA was a pedophile and called some mones parents and told them for 16 months, they did not tell her parents.

He went home to Michigan State, he abused 120 more girls in those intervening months, some of whom I'm very close to, and they were 10, 11, 12, right? And so the cover up, why is this not covered more? I think probably the story of hard knocks and mental illness maybe makes a better story. People don't, it's hard to face very wealthy entities. It's hard to speak

out against the machine. I don't give a f***, I have been so harmed in my life and I am a mother of two little girls now. I don't give a f say a lot right I pound the pavement I keep talking I'm not going away until kids are safe but it's hard yeah to be the one that says no United States Olympic Committee. I'm going to take you on or no you know Harvey Weinstein or Jeffrey Epstein or you know whoever I'm going to take you on Woody Allen, that's hard. Right? I really admire you.

I respect you. And you just made such a great point. It's not always these big organizations, it's their co-conspirators. It's the production company that supports the famous producer that got the money behind them. It's the television networks that benefit financially from the gymnastics ratings, which are highly rated on television. Correct. I mean, I don't know.

End of Horseman, network deals, Leotard companies, you know, and the list goes on, and there is so much more, these pockets are deep, it's money and it's brand, it's treating little girls like commodities. And you know, you're a father to a beautiful daughter who I met today. It's her birthday, right? Beautiful girl. She's about to go out into the world. I have two little girls. I can't sleep at night if I don't use my mouth. And that's, I don't have all the money in the world, but I have my mouth. And they care about brand. And they care about me doing things like this where I talk about the truth.

Again, he's not my opinion. No, these are facts. I'm thrilled to be a tiny, you know, a little bit of the platform that, you know, can get this out. I was when I was prepping and just sitting here at the University of America. So I'm so enamored with you and so just proud of you and just sitting here. You know, so I'm so enamored with you and and so just proud of you and grateful for you. But when I was preparing for this and even sitting here today, from us of getting so angry that you know, these are these are little girls that we're talking about here. These are our children, which even more bizarre to me is that it's our national family too. You know, as a country, that you think this would just be shock and awe campaign raining down from

everywhere. Yeah. And by the way, this is just a microcosm of situations that are happening in little small towns somewhere every day. Correct. Every day. As you're listening to this interview or watching it, there's somebody doing something to a child that shouldn't be done and it needs to be called out.

The light needs to be shined on it. Yeah. And we need to be resolved in helping them. Is there anything, maybe this sounds, you know, fluffy, but is there anything we could all be doing to help you help this cause, help the overall mission here? Yeah, I mean, continuing to shine a light on these stories, right? And social media is powerful and it's been our best friend in the NASCAR case. But in a way, we got the red carpet rolled out for us. We were a bunch of little white girls

and you well known. In Lansing, Michigan, right? Let gymnastics is cute and whatever. But not everybody gets a stage at the SPs to shine a light on your own story. And I think COVID has been really difficult for a lot of children because they're oftentimes at home with their abuser or they're put in situations they don't have an outlet like a school or a school counselor or whatever.

And what you said is so true. This is happening in your community. Whoever's watching this, right? You know, I think of a case I have right now with a pediatrician pedophile in this tiny little town in central Pennsylvania. He was basically one of the only pediatricians you could find in the town. And he abused kids for 40 years. He was criminally sentenced for life.

And now we're working on the civil case, but it is happening everywhere. And I think continuing, this isn't a fun conversation. People don't like talking about kids getting harmed. It makes people uncomfortable. It's much more fun to watch the Kardashians, right? I also think, Sarah, I think people think it's rare than it really is. Meaning in your mind, you think, what a monster will do this to a child.

There's very few monsters. Yeah. But the truth is, and there's degrees of everything in life as well. So there's inappropriateness that goes up scales. And from starting from the spectrum of something bad all the way to horrific, there's more people doing this than you think. It made me think when we were doing this. Most of my audience knows that my introduction to personal development to wanting to help people was I was done playing in my baseball career.

I ended up getting a job at a gigantic group home, but it was really an orphanage. And my boys were all removed from their homes. And I would walk in and these were these beautiful boys. All my boys were eight years old. Black, Asian, Hispanic, Indian, white children. Some of them came from afloen homes, some of them came from poor homes.

All of them though, the majority of them had been molested by the age of eight. And I remember they would all go off to school every day. All the different classrooms and some of them went to different schools too when they would leave our home. And I was thinking in almost every classroom there's the potential that there's a child going through this sort of trauma somewhere on some level. Statistically there is. It's amazing that we think

it's rare. And so because that's so true, what are some of the signs as a parent potentially? And by the way, if you are a parent or an uncle or an auntie who might have a parent doing this to a child that they care about, are there signs we can be looking for in children we love? Number one. And then two, reverse it. Are there things that parents should be looking for

when their children are around other people as well? What would you say? So I say, and I hate to say this, because I'm an eternal optimist and I believe in good. But when you walk into your kids' school or when you look at your kids' sports team, who's the most popular teacher?

Who's the most popular coach? Who's the one spending extra time with all that? That's the one you better keep your fucking eyes on. Because that's the one earning the trust. That's the one grooming, That's the one, right? So keep your eyes open. The one you least expect the one you trust the most. The one where you say my mother says to me to this day, I believed Larry Nasser would not hurt a fly, right? He was that guy to this day. He was that guy. So keep your eyes open. And in terms of being a parent, again, I talked about giving her child that language. My daughter knows she's

five who's allowed to wipe her on the potty if she needs help. Who's allowed to see her or changing her clothes? And that list is about this big, right? Even our beautiful college age babysitters. I love them. I trust them. They're not allowed to wipe my daughter on the potty. The end, right? And so teaching her about never keeping secrets from mommy, about her body, you know, she'll say to me, Mommy, I'm in charge of my own body.

I've taught her that. And sometimes it backfires on me because I want to kiss her a hundred times and she'll say, Mommy, I'm done. I'm in charge of my own body. And I'll say, you're right. And I have to respect that. You know. And so having these hard conversations, you don't have to overexpose your child to the world being evil. You don't have to overexpose your child to the topic of children being raped. But giving them that autonomy, giving them that sense of self.

I often attribute the fact that I was abused at eight years old too. I never developed a sense of self. I was never, I was so young, I never was taught that my voice matter, that what I wanted would be respected, what I didn't want, wouldn't my coach told me, do whatever the f*** I tell you to do. Even when your, oh, your legs broken broken do it 10 times instead of five you know so I did I was a blank robot of a shell of a child right and so and so I didn't have the words to say please stop or I'm uncomfortable I was I was a shell.

That's amazing to me. What you said is such a hard thing to say about it being the popular coach, or the popular teacher, but I must say in reflection in my situation, and I'm not sure what happened in my situation. I'm really not. I know this, I'm 50 years old,

and I can remember it very clearly, the lead up, and so it left some kind of mark on me. It wasn't just another day at school. I know that. But it was exactly that person. It was the cool guy, everyone liked him. My parents liked him. He took extra time.

And which is such a tough thing because there's all these amazing coaches and teachers out there that aren't doing this. Correct. But it still comes with it. I think the second piece I would just add as by the way, having no more near the credibility that you have is if your child says anything to you, believe them.

Oh, I mean, that's number one. When a client walks into our office, our, our, the first thing we say is we believe you and this was not your fault. You did nothing wrong and it's amazing. Nine times out of ten, that person will burst into tears and say you are the first person. Just say that to me. Thank you so much because especially when you're taking on

that popular cool whatever. It's terrifying because you know there's going to be that contingency that says they would never do that. Right when the news broke about Larry. Oh my teammates flew from all over the country to go to Larry's house to comfort him. Wow. They and still to this day my teammates and I my teammates my right or dies have no relationship because they chose John and Larry it over truth. And it wasn't until they recovered the 37,000 images

of child pornography, including images of Larry's own children, on the hard drive that were in the trash can, about to go out to the garbage that day, that they actually said, well, I guess this could have happened. My goodness. So it's hard. Can I give you an observation? Yeah.

I'm really sitting in the presence of people when I interview them. And the most pain on your face today was not when you're talking about Larry or even Getter or all the FBI or any of that. It was the pain of your teammates going the other way. Like your face literally changed. It's still. But my heart. Yeah. It broke my heart because my word and my truth

Wasn't enough Because of the grooming and and I don't blame them sure I don't talk to them, but I don't blame them because they were victims as well Right and in some cases because this is the other thing too We need to remember so that we believe a victim. Just think logically everybody. So a murderer doesn't murder every person, right? An abuser doesn't abuse every child.

So because they didn't abuse you or another child at the school or on the team, does not discount the fact that they could have potentially harmed another child. This is what we do, we avoid into it to me, so we didn't do it to you. Correct. That's not how it works.

Yep. Right? So this just be very clear about it. I'm curious also, the overall impact on the ladies now, most of them are grown women, that you now interact with. What are just some, what's the ramifications in the lives of some of these beautiful women who were, you have to remember too, we're talking about some of the most disciplined young people on the planet are involved in U.S. H. Gymnastics, discipline, sacrificing, working hard. These are special young women as well. What have been some of the

ramifications I'm curious. Thanks for seeing them in that way because they are such special, beautiful people. And I appreciate when they're seen. The ramifications are lifelong. So when your murdered, your body is killed. When you're raped as a child, your soul and your psyche are in a sense killed. And it takes a lifetime of hard work therapy. It's anxiety, it's depression, it's eating disorders, it's alcoholism, it's substance

abuse, it's inability to function, inability to get up, have a job, go to work, trust relationships, inability to get into relationships, sexual issues, and the list goes on. And I am proud that I've been able to be strong enough to, in some ways, be a voice for my younger sister survivors and those who don't want to go out there and talk about this. But I also never wanted to be, never want to be painted in, be painted in a way that it's like, she got past it. Look at that bright, shiny, badass lawyer. She's so cool.

She got over her abuse. I still have those days. I still have those days. I'm still in therapy. I'm a huge believer. I have a regular therapist. I have a trauma therapist. I still get triggered.

I still sometimes question, I still, you know, sometimes question my intuition, you know, it's a process, it's like getting on your yoga mat, they say you get on and you practice every day, you never arrive. That's what healing is like, and that's what this healing journey is, it's a lifetime thing. I've been able to find immense gratitude and it sounds really crazy. People are like she wants to be smoking something but I have found immense gratitude for what happened to me. I would not change a minute of my life. Why?

Because here I am, I'm on the mat and it has been so cathartic for me to be able to walk other survivors through the legal process to meet my younger self where I once was to take that hand and to say, we've got this, I'm the bigger, stronger bully now. Nobody's ever gonna hurt you again and I'm gonna be fucking sure of it. Wow. And I'm the bigger, stronger bully now. Nobody's ever gonna hurt you again, and I'm gonna be f***ing sure of it.

Wow. And I'm grateful. You know what, you know what, it's true, by the way. When you walked in, just because I knew your story, I thought I was gonna meet somebody who had a heaviness to them. Do you know what I mean by that? An emotional heaviness to them. And immediately you were incredibly light,

infectious energy, smiling. And I think that's important for people to know about. What you're showing up here right now in the interview is how you show up off camera. Thank you. That you don't, you can work through these things. You have to carry them. You said something profound, because I think there's

some people that's an interview that didn't have this type of trauma. Yeah. And they say to themselves, well, it's, I'm really upset about this. I want to do something. But it's not me. Yeah.

But most of us need to go, you said something so beautiful, they're going to meet that younger you and kind of grab her hand. And so many of us need to do that. We are, as adults, most of us are working through something from our childhood. It could be as simple as trying to still get your mom or dad's recognition.

Maria Shriver did my show. Yeah. She's had one of the most remarkable lives of all time. We were in our time on Maria Pryor. And she literally told me on the show that her father, who's passed away, who had had Alzheimer's, was a great man. He accomplished so many things in his life.

She said, he's no longer even here. And I still find myself sometimes trying to earn his admiration and recognition. Yeah. And so we are all working through them. We can go back and just acknowledge things that happen in our childhood that we're working through. It'll help you understand yourself now.

Yeah. The bigger question I had for you though, this is a hard one. Yeah, yeah. And I didn't know it was gonna happen. I wanted to ask you, I wanted to ask you, but I wasn't sure I was gonna ask you till I met you. Now I know I wanna ask you.

Okay. And so this is the tough one. So we wanna work through these things from our childhood. And if you are a victim of any type of abuse, or just even neglect, So this is the tough one. So we want to work through these things from our childhood. And if you are a victim of any type of abuse or just even neglect, maybe you grew up without a parent in your house, right? Or maybe no one hugs you.

You know, maybe there's neglect in your life. How do you work through it, but not make being a victim your identity? It's pretty clearly in your case because you're involved now in sort of the sexual abuse world and defending people that do that on the legal side. But I don't sense that it's your identity. At all. It's not your identity. But would you agree with me that many people take this issue? Yes. Whatever's happened to them. And it becomes a permanent part of their identity, the remainder of their life, and they never escape the identity. And to me, that abuser is now still abusing you. Or that

neglect that happened to you is still neglecting you. If it makes it your entire identity the rest of your life, do you not agree with that? I totally agree with that. And I know people who are professional victims, right? Professional survivors. I want to go tell the story of hard knocks over and over and over. I do a lot of speaking. I do a lot of interviews, I do a lot of this, but my message is always one of hope. You can be a full, complex, beautiful person and this is such a little part of who I am, but I come back to life as choices and I come back to being in the driver's seat of my own life. And am I going to let Larry Nassau and John Gettart

take one more ounce of me, absolutely not. I'm a happy person. I love to laugh. I love to have fun. This happened to me, but I am a woman. I am a mother. I am a lawyer. I have a friend, I'm a daughter.

I have so many other identities that feel so much better than victim. I will say I love the identity of a survivor, not just of sexual abuse, but I survive something and now look at me. I love you. It's awesome. And now look at me. So I think everybody can relate to that.

You have all survived something, a divorce, a death of a loved one or a parent, cancer, whatever, we all have our ****. I got mine out of the way the first 40 years of my life. I know a lot of people did too, but a lot of people have yet to face theirs. You can walk into that ring of fire. You can walk the **** out the other side. You can be a full and complete and loved and loving person, not despite all of that, but in spite of all of that. I'm no different than you. You've had your own

shit, right? Mine looks like sexual abuse. Yours looks like whatever it looks like, right? Every person listening to that has their own sh**. Guess what? Your life can still be good. It can still be happy. It can still be fine, and you can still make a f***ing difference. Are you gonna let it happen to you and go in fetal position and your bed and never come out? Or is it gonna happen to you and you're gonna get the f*** up and say somebody else can benefit

from a story? Somebody else can be better off for having encountered me? That's a choice. Life is choices. I know what I choose. Oh my gosh, that's one of my favorite things that has ever been said on the show,

is particularly coming from you because of your story. I just think you're awesome. I just do, I really do. Like I wanted to do the show because I knew that it would be an important thing to get out, but now I've met you and I'm like, I now I think the important thing is people hearing from you, which reminds me,

you've started a podcast, I wanna make sure that people know about that. So tell them a little bit about your podcast and how they can get it. What's it called? Thank you. It's called bar fights, taking on issues that matter. And it's not exclusively about sexual abuse or cults or whatever. I had Catherine Schwartz and Ager Pat on. We talked about forgiveness, right? Something everybody can relate to. Everybody needs to know about. I had a mental skills coach who coaches Olympic athletes on. I had a woman who works for the NFL who broke the glass ceiling.

It's all the issues that we all need to talk about and sometimes aren't fun, but sometimes are a lot of fun. So barfights, you can find it on Apple Podcast. You can find me on Instagram at SarahSARHG. KL, IYana, I'm on Twitter. Google me, I'm all the f*** over the place. And I said to you when I arrived, you know, I'm used to ask if there's anything I don't wanna talk about. I said, I'm an open book.

To me, that's authenticity. If I don't come here and lay it all out, that's an authentic to my own heart. And so I'm all over the place and, you know. This conversation flew by, it's how good it was. I know. No, it didn't feel it, like seriously, it flew by. The reason is when you're as authentic

and as vulnerable as you are, let me tell you one of the things that's so critical about that's wonderful about you, makes other people become comfortable themselves being authentic and vulnerable. And it helps, even for me talking to you, I wasn't surprised I shared this with my gym coach, just felt comfortable doing it. So if you want to have other people open up, you've got to be present. What you do really, really well that I just want to give the audience a key of is that even

though you're telling your story, you help other people feel seen and heard. And one of the things, millions of people don't feel every day, it's what I hope my show does for all of you, is that this is a place you can come and learn, but also that you can see and hear yourself in the show and know that I love you and I care about you and your family and your lives and I bring you people like Sarah

because I know they can improve your life in some measurable way. That's how I, by the way, when the show's over, when we're done, I go, did we help people's lives? Did we change lives? Did we potentially save lives today? It could be a nutrition show. Did we improve their life nutrition?

It doesn't matter. Today did all of them. It checks all of the boxes. We improve lives, we've changed lives, and I know that we saved a few lives, too, or you did rather. So thank you for being here to us, Sarah. Thank you so much.

Cheers by the way. To you, overcoming and winning, and not just surviving, you're thriving. Thank you, and to a beautiful friendship. Yes, the beginning of friendship. We're not even that far away, so we're going to do dinner very soon. Yeah. Hey guys, we did it again. This is about showing the world.

Fastest growing show in the world for a reason. There's some big announcements coming about the show here very, very soon. And I'm just grateful to all of you for being so loyal to it and sharing it regularly like you do with people that you love and care about that you think it'll bring value to. I just ask you to continue to do that and God bless you. Max out. This is The Edmila Show. This is The Edmila Show.