Olympic Gymnast Shawn Johnson East Reveals What Led to 8-Year Rift With Nastia Liukin – JP
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Shawn Johnson East is sharing how a famous friendship nearly flamed out.
The Olympic gold medalist got candid about her bond with fellow gymnast Nastia Liukin, with whom she competed on Team USA in the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.
“Nastia and I were best friends, training, and at the Olympics we were roommates,” Shawn, now 32, told Access Hollywood in a segment published Nov. 4. “We were 16 and 18 years old. We were kids. I felt like we were under the spotlight and scrutiny so much to be each other’s top, biggest competitors, and we had figured out on the competition floor how to be best friends and competitors.”
However, the pressures of young stardom soon had a negative impact on their friendship.
“When the world started kind of interjecting how we should handle it,” the athlete continued, “they said we should also be each other’s worst enemies as well, so we didn’t speak for eight years.”