Erin Andrews revealed several difficult personal stories today during testimony in a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the owner of the hotel she was staying in when a man captured video of her in her room, nude.
The sports reporter was required to testify that she did not release the video herself as a publicity stunt and says she was forced to watch it with her father and FBI agents watching. Though viewing the video was required for agents to try and figure out where it was being filmed from, Andrews says it was traumatic and made her sick.
“I said ‘Dad, I’m going to puke’. We put my hand over my body because it was so embarrassing that the FBI had to watch it in front of me,” Andrews said.
Erin had to deal with multiple reports speculating that she had hired someone to take the video herself and said in the courtroom that at the time, no one realized she had a stalker.
“This is me naked. Nobody knew that it was a stalker. Nobody knew that the Marriott had put him next to me. It was being said that I did this for a publicity stunt. All we kept thinking as a family ‘This is me! Who did this to me and who let this happen?'”
Michael David Barrett, the man who filmed Erin Andrews in the hotel, was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in 2009 and detailed how he managed to capture footage of her, saying that when he found out she was staying there, he called the front desk from the hotel restaurant and asked to be connected to her room, knowing that her room number would show up on the phone’s display. After that, it was a matter of requesting the room next to hers–which happened to be unoccupied–and using a saw to take out the peephole on her room’s door so that he could place his phone up to it and record as soon as he heard her get out of the shower.
Erin Andrews became emotional in court this week and relayed how the events surrounding the video have led to anxiety, panic attacks, and depression.
Despite the difficult testimony and everything that comes with a lawsuit, Andrews has kept her usual busy schedule lately, co-hosting Dancing With The Stars and balancing that with her reporting duties.
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