Arguably the darkest day in the sporting history of the United States of America was when Larry Nassar was found guilty of widespread sexual abuse of young athletes.
Referred to by many as the largest sexual abuse scandal in sporting history, the 60-year-old former physician managed to prey upon hundreds of young girls as they were trying to develop their skills and become elite athletes.
Some very big names were victims of Nassar, such as Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, and Aly Raisman. Some of the victims were as young as eight years old.
Nassar is currently serving a life sentence for his crimes but the suffering goes on for many, and a Netflix series titled ‘Simone Biles; Rising’ shares intimate details about the current Team USA gymnast and her experience with Nassar.
Biles’ brave comments
In the docuseries, Biles candidly admits, ‘I felt so naive all those years, thinking it was normal,’ about being sexually assaulted.
One scene shows Biles driving her car and then she says: “I was driving at 99, and I just remember breaking down and calling my mom. She asked me to pull over because I was crying so hard.”
Her mother, Nellie Biles, says: “She was just hysterical. She didn’t say anything. She just cried, and we just cried together.”
Despite Nassar being incarcerated in 2017, Biles made the brave decision to discuss what had happened to her on a podcast in 2018.
On the Call Her Daddy podcast, she said: “It was hard to get out of bed. It was hard to do anything. Everything felt heavy in the end of the world. And again, a lot of sleepless crying nights.
“It just felt very, I wouldn’t even say dehumanizing, but it felt like I held a lot of the guilt that wasn’t mine to hold. I think that was the hardest for me to process.”
