Why Shawn Johnson East and Nastia Liukin didn’t speak for eight years – NBC 7 San Diego

Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson East recalls her eight-year feud with former teammate and close friend Nastia Liukin.

During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the pair competed together on Team USA. The gymnasts were close friends before the Summer Games, but Johnson East said in a recent interview that their bond quickly changed when faced with the pressure of being in the spotlight.

“Nastia and I were best friends, trained and at the Olympics we were roommates,” she said Access to Hollywood in an interview on November 4. “We were 16 and 18 years old. We were children. I felt like we were so in the spotlight and under so much scrutiny to be each other’s best, biggest competitors, and we had figured out on the competition floor how to be best friends and competitors.

Johnson East said the international stage ultimately had an impact on their friendship.

“But when the world started interfering with how we should deal with it, they said we also had to be each other’s worst enemies,” she explained. “So we didn’t talk to each other for eight years.”

The two kept their distance during that time, but Johnson East said their then-boyfriends eventually became “so tired” of hearing them talk about each other that they pushed their girlfriends to open lines of communication.

“And we did that,” Johnson East said. “And since then, it’s like we haven’t missed a beat. We’re each other’s biggest fans, best friends, biggest supporters and we just love each other.”

On how they rekindled their friendship, Johnson East explained that she and Liukin had lunch together in New York. Once they started talking, they completely forgot about the past.

“It really was within two minutes that we were best friends again,” she said. “We both said the same thing, like, ‘I don’t know what happened, but I miss you and I miss us.’ And it has remained that way ever since.”

Johnson East, who won four medals at the 2008 Olympics, he was injured while trying to make the team for the 2012 Games in London. Shortly afterwards, she retired from the sport and has since become a New York Times bestselling author, wife to former football player Andrew East and loving mother to three children.

Liukin, who won five medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, now mentors aspiring gymnasts. her website. Liukin also shares moments from her life on Instagramfrom style inspiration to travel photos and more.

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