Gabby Douglas Says She Was Also Sexually Abused By Former Team USA Gymnastics Doctor Larry Nassar
Gabby Douglas is the third member of the 2012 Olympic gold winning ‘Fierce Five’ gymnastics team to come forward with claims of sexual abuse by former Team USA doctor Larry Nassar.
Douglas confirmed the alleged assault in a lengthy Instagram post that started out as a follow up apology for recent comments she made in response to her former teammate Alexandra Raisman detailing her alleged assault by Nassar.
The Olympic gold medalist began, “First, I want to reiterate my apology for responding the way that I did to a comment that one of my teammates post. I know some of you may take what I am about to say as insincere, but I still wanted to provide context.”
Unexpectedly revealing her own experience with sexual assault Douglas later added, “I didn’t view my comments as victim shaming because I know that no matter what you wear, it NEVER gives anyone the right to harass or abuse you. It would be like saying that because of the leotards we wore, it was our fault that we were abused by Larry Nassar.”
While Douglas didn’t go into detail surrounding her assault, she did say, “I didn’t publicly share my experiences as well as many other things because for years we were conditioned to stay silent and honestly some things were extremely painful. I wholeheartedly support my teammates for coming forward with what happened to them.”
New comments from Gabby Douglas are a stark contrast from her thoughts last week. She quoted one of Raisman’s tweets on sexual assault and added that women should dress modestly in an attempt not to entice the wrong crowd. Gabby’s former teammate Simone Biles quickly took offense to Douglas’ comments and quickly issued a reply of her own.