Olympic champion Shawn Johnson speaks publicly for the first time about her ordeal with a stalker. INSIDE EDITION has the details.
Olympic gold medalist and Dancing with the Stars winner Shawn Johnson is speaking out for the first time about her stalking ordeal. The stalker, 36-year-old Robert O'Ryan, was found guilty of stalking earlier this month.
She relived the moment on Good Morning America. "I had to go up there. I didn't want to. I kept asking if I could stay in the back room or go home. But it's something I had to do. I had to stand up for everybody else up there that's been through it."
She was also critical of the police in Alabama, who pulled her stalker over for a traffic violation while he was driving across country to meet her.
O'Ryan: "I'm meeting with her, I've been communicating with her, and uh basically I'm going to try to get her to marry me."
Police Officer: "Who is she?"
O'Ryan: "Shawn Johnson."
The police let him go, not realizing that he was a potential threat to the gymnast.
"Seeing what the Alabama cop did, you know, they let these guys go. I don't know why. But it just makes you want to be a little more cautious than you think you should be," Johnson told Good Morning America.
Her stalker will serve his sentence in a state mental institution.
