Those Guys Have All the Fun - James Andrew Miller [374]
Approximately twenty-four hours later, Andrews hired an attorney, who then issued a statement: “While alone in the privacy of her hotel room, Erin Andrews was surreptitiously videotaped without her knowledge or consent.” It took blogs about a nanosecond to connect the statement with the video images.
Andrews, chosen by Playboy magazine as America’s “sexiest sportscaster” in 2007 and 2008, was understandably mortified. She even worried aloud that the incident might end her career. The scandal spiraled off into other unseemly indignities. The Walt Disney Company and Rupert Murdoch’s Fox empire, never exactly chummy, got into a wrangle when Murdoch’s New York Post ran still photos of the naked Andrews made from frames of the stalker’s video. ESPN charged the Post with going “beyond the boundaries of common decency in the interest of sensationalism” and broke off all ties with the newspaper. The Post shot back via its popular Page Six feature, ridiculing “the Mickey Mouse sports network” for its huffy and supposedly hypocritical reaction.
To Andrews’s annoyance and perhaps bafflement, the story took yet another peculiar turn when Christine Brennan, ESPN analyst and columnist for USA Today, seemed to blame Andrews in part for what happened. In a radio appearance and a Twitter tweet, Brennan said Andrews should “rely on her talent and brains” instead of “playing to the frat house.” She said part of Andrews’s “shtick” was “being a little bit out there” and suggested she was thus “encouraging the complete nut case to drill a hole in your room.”
STEVE ANDREWS, Erin’s Father:
When she called me that night, she was in hysterics. Erin was frantic. I sort of went into reporter mode, you know: Who, what, where, when, how, why? The more unglued she became, the more I tried to remain low key. At the time I thought, “It’s on the Internet, we can’t change that right now,” so protecting her safety was the priority. We didn’t know what or who was involved in this. It was terribly frightening, and it was devastating to see my daughter being humiliated this way.
I suggested she call ESPN to let them know what was going on, and ask them to help get the thing off the Web.
Erin and I, along with her two point attorneys, met with two FBI agents and Wes Hsu, an assistant U.S. attorney that July day in Los Angeles. It was Mr. Hsu who politely and almost apologetically said, “I know you are a victim of a crime, we’re just not sure it is a federal crime and that we have jurisdiction.” My comment to them was, “It may not be a federal crime, but I know she is a victim and I don’t want to be back here in a few months sitting at this table listening to you all explain to me why she is dead.”
When I think about the enormity of what she’s been through, I tear up and begin to cry.
ERIN ANDREWS:
My dad is amazing. He is my best friend, and he’s in the business, so I can talk to him a lot about my frustrations or my accomplishments or just things I have questions about. I have always had that kind of relationship with him. It’s the reason why I’m in the industry. I would sit and watch the Boston Celtics and the Red Sox with him all the time. He is truly my best friend. I talk to him four to five times a day. If it wasn’t for him I don’t how I would have been able to get through any of it.
My family and I were living under a rock during that whole thing, but we knew exactly what people were saying—who was saying what and who wasn’t saying anything. I’ll be honest with you; Christine’s comments hurt me so bad. It disappointed