Shawn Johnson’s marriage played a big role in him and Nastia Liukin becoming friends again.
Johnson, 32, revealed in a new interview reach hollywood He Famous gymnasts got into a fight After the 2008 Beijing Games, but they took place eight years later.
In 2018, the pair spoke about the rift in their friendship at a YouTube sitdown at the Liukins Grander Summit in Boston. Liukin explained that when she learned that she was not invited to Johnson’s 2016 wedding to Andrew East, she decided to “fix” things with Johnson.
Their path to reconciliation began with Johnson writing an email, which he described as “a love letter” to Liukin, while sitting in an airport in Liukin’s hometown of Dallas.
“If you do not respond, I completely understand,” Johnson said in the letter. nbc sports“Just know that I love you. I miss my best friend. I support you in everything you do.
Liukin said he received the email at a restaurant in Manhattan. She recently did an interview with The New York Times where she was asked if she was attending Johnson’s wedding Former NFL star Andrew East,
At that time, Liukin had not received a wedding invitation.
“That’s when it really hit me because I thought, Oh my God, this girl that I’ve been best friends with for so many years and this moment that’s about to happen in her life is the biggest moment of her life, and I “I’m not going there,” Liukin said in the YouTube clip. [the reporter] That said, I was like, I have to fix this.
The Russian-born athlete recalled going to the bathroom and crying over Johnson’s email. She responded immediately and the former teammates met in New York a few weeks later.
Liukin later attended Johnson and East’s wedding in Franklin, Tennessee on April 16, 2016.
She said Johnson “was the bigger guy” by reaching out to her first, which led to their agreement.
Liukin and Johnson were teenagers when they both competed at the 2008 Beijing Games. At that time their friendship broke because the public wanted to become his rival.
“You can’t like both. It was like ‘Twilight,'” Liukin said in the YouTube video. “As a 16- and 18-year-old girl… we were used to the idea that whenever someone told us something, we believed it. We thought it was right. Or what happened was supposed to happen. Or this is how we should have behaved.”
Johnson continued, “Right after the Olympics, the whole world conspired against each other against us. As soon as the all-around hit, it was like Nastia or Shawn. … We felt like, well, they don’t want us to be friends. They won’t let us be friends.”
In an Access Hollywood interview, Johnson said that she and Liukin’s significant others intervened to help the gymnasts get back in touch.
“Our boyfriends at the time were so tired of hearing us talk about each other that he said, ‘That’s enough, just talk to each other again,’ and we did.” “Dancing with the Stars” champion revealed. “And since then, it seems like we’ve left no stone unturned.”
Johnson said of the reconciliation, “We both said the same thing, ‘I don’t know what happened but I miss you and I miss us.’ “And it’s been like that ever since.”
Johnson won four medals at the 2008 Olympic Games, while Liukin won five.
Both of them retired from gymnastics in 2012.
