Andrews: Nude videos hurt her relationships
Sports broadcaster Erin Andrews said coaches and athletes reached out to her in support after secretly recorded videos of her nude went viral in 2009, but despite encouragement she says she will never be OK.
Andrews continued her testimony Tuesday in her civil trial in Nashville. She said LSU football coach Les Miles and Kentucky basketball coach John Calipari were among those who supported her.
She said Calipari called her Monday night to tell her, “Love you, thinking of you” and encourage her. “It means a lot,” she said.
Andrews is suing Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt University, where a stalker altered a peephole and took the nude video of her in 2008. She is suing the owner, West End Hotel Partners, and the operator, Windsor Capital Group, saying they revealed where she was staying and gave the stalker access to her.
Marc Dedman, an attorney with Spicer Rudstrom in Nashville who is representing the hotel operator, led the cross-examination. He walked through the defendants one by one, prompting Andrews to agree the stalker, Michael Barrett, was responsible and that she was a crime victim.
Dedman asked if people thought less of Andrews or more of her because of this case and the peephole videos.
She said she reads every day that people think less of her. An- drews said some people think more of her for filing the lawsuit.
“I think people think I’m brave for standing up to the Marriott,” she said.
In a series of questions, Dedman listed Andrews’ endorsements — for Reebok, for Degree deodorant and her commercial for Victoria’s Secret — as proof she has been successful since the videos were posted. She agreed that was true.
Andrews was filmed by Barrett at three hotels. Jurors saw the video from Nashville and a sixsecond clip from a hotel in Ohio.
She testified about how the emotional impact of the videos affected her relationships.
She said she feels guilty for her partner, Jarret Stoll, an NHL player with the Minnesota Wild, because she has trust issues and he doesn’t understand why she cannot move on and why she obsessively checks the Internet.
“I feel sad, because I think he would have loved the girl more who was there before this happened,” Andrews said. “And I feel guilty about that.”
Andrews still travels often for her work. She said at each hotel she checks alarm clocks, phones and beds for cameras and immediately covers door peepholes.
“As soon as I get to a hotel no matter what city or state I’m in I tell them I want to be moved from the room I was pre-booked in,” Andrews testified. “I also say if someone has asked to be next to me, they need to call me.”