The right thing: Confronting my abuser

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. America is changing. And so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. I'm Tristan Redman in London. And this is The Global Story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. We focus on the part of the internet that most people don't know about. It's called the dark web. Undercover in the furthest corners of the dark web, US special agents are on a mission to locate and rescue children from abuse.

0:51Move in now. From the BBC World Service, World of Secrets, the darkest web follows their shocking investigations. Search for World of Secrets wherever you get your BBC podcasts. This programme contains references to sexual abuse, which some listeners may find upsetting. In 2018, the eminent sports doctor Larry Nassar's Fall from Grace made headlines around the world. Former USA Olympic gymnastics sports doctor Larry Nassar has pleaded guilty to seven charges of sexual assault against women and girls in his care. As part of the plea deal, he could face at least 25 years in prison. One of the gymnasts he treated was Rachel Denhollander.

1:41When I went to see Larry, what I now know is that when I walked in his door, I immediately became his next victim. By the time Nasser was sentenced to decades in prison, more than 200 others also said they'd been abused by him. But Rachel was the first person to publicly accuse him of sexual abuse in a move that would cost her dearly. It was the reality that I never get to be a private person again. The reality that I will probably become a very hated person in this country. It has changed our lives permanently forever and the impact on my kids and my family will be forever. I'm Mike Woldridge and this is the documentary from the BBC World Service.

2:22I'm bringing you the second part in the latest of my occasional heart and soul series, The Right Thing. We'll meet Rachel Den Hollander and hear how her deep Christian faith affected her choice to reveal her abuse. I had wrestled very deeply with those questions. Where was God in this? Is there a God? Does he care? And we ask whether she now thinks accusing Larry Nassar of sexual assault and facing him in court was the right thing to do, the central question of this series.

2:57Rachel Den Hollander was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan in the USA in 1984. She was homeschooled, her parents were Christian, and going to church was part of her daily life. But hers was not a rule-bound, hardline Christian family. My parents told me from a young age, you're going to have to decide what you believe. We will love you no matter what, but faith is a very personal thing. It was acceptable, even encouraged, to wrestle through those big questions and those hard issues and to express doubt and concern and to really go on that journey together. This set a precedent for Rachel where making hard decisions was encouraged and personal faith was something to explore and question.

3:41She started doing gymnastics when she was 11 and says she enjoyed it. I loved the beauty of it. I loved that you could take something so difficult and make it so beautiful. The combination of grace and strength. Gymnastics is a sport that you typically start when you're 6, 7 years old at the absolute latest. I didn't start until I was almost 12. Most gymnasts take four to five years to become competitive on average. I became competitive in nine months. And then I kind of stalled out. I just, I wasn't built for it. And I was really old. I was never going to be anything great.

4:19Just after her 15th birthday, suffering from chronic back pain, she paid her first visit to Larry Nassar. By the late 90s, he was one of the foremost doctors treating gymnasts in the US, both those on the Olympic team and those on the team for Michigan State University. Rachel says he was recommended by a friend. She gave us his background. He's a team physician for the Olympic team. He sees all the gymnasts in the area. He understands the sport. He understands the physics and he can do things that nobody else can do. So you had all these recommendations to use him. What happened when you went to him for treatment?

4:58What I now know is that when I walked in his door, I immediately became his next victim. He was sexually abusing young girls under the guise of medical treatment every single day and multiple times a day. Like all abusers, he really tailored how he did what he did to the person in the room. My mom was an incredibly involved mom, and he really took that relationship of trust and he wielded it like a weapon. So in my case, he could tell that my mom was very involved. And so he pulled out a skeleton and he showed her, here's how her hips are rotated. Here's what's going on with her shoulders. I showed her, talked to her about the physics of it and said he was going to do myofascial release, which is a legitimate physical therapy technique.

5:40And my mom and I actually already knew about pelvic floor therapy in and of itself. Larry didn't say that's what he was doing, but we knew that was a category of medical treatment because we had had friends with birth injuries who had had it done. And so what Larry would do for me and for everyone else is he would drape us so that our parents could only see one hand, and then he would use the other hand to abuse us. And for most of us, myself included, we didn't know that we needed to tell because we didn't realize our parents couldn't see. So I didn't realize until months down the road that my mom didn't realize what he was doing and that I needed to tell her what he was doing.

6:13But it was still something she needed to think through. I thought, this is clearly something he does regularly. There's no way somebody hasn't described what's going on in this room. And I didn't just trust Larry. I trusted the community that surrounded him to do the right thing. And what I discovered years later was that I was right on the first two points. He was doing it regularly. And people, children, had described over and over again what was going on in that exam room. What I was wrong in believing was that the adults in charge would do the right thing. Eventually, Rachel did tell her mother.

6:49And together they started to research what had happened when Larry Nassar treated her. We talked to a couple of physical therapists that practiced pelvic floor therapy, and that was when we started going, ooh, what he's doing really doesn't bear any resemblance to what we thought this category of medical treatment was. We went ahead and got all my medical records that existed so that we would have them if I ever had the chance to file a police report. Rachel says she was still only 17 at this point, and she felt they didn't have the ability to challenge someone with such powerful connections. Larry was the sports medicine physician for a gymnastics team.

7:26He was the sports medicine doctor for our women's Olympic team. That is the sport that makes the most money out of any summer Olympic sport, which meant if I spoke up against Larry, I was speaking up against a Big Ten university. I was speaking up against the national governing body that made the most money at the Olympic Games. That national governing body is charted by the USOPC, United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, and that is charted by the Senate. So now I have touched money, politics and sports, all three of which are idols in our country. And so the discussion I had with my mom was one voice is never going to be enough.

8:00She knew she would have to wait. I am going to have to find an opportunity to meet him where he is most confident and to wrest control of the narrative from him. And at 17, that wasn't something I had the ability to do yet. The years went by and Rachel studied and became a lawyer. She met and married a divinity student, Jacob Den Hollander, and they started a family. From the beginning, Jacob knew about Larry Nasser. When she told me about her sexual abuse prior to us getting married, I was very supportive of her and called her that whatever she needed to do, whatever she wanted to do, I would support her.

8:40I always thought she was going to do something special. She's a very unique person. She's extremely intelligent. She's an extraordinary communicator. And she's motivated by compassion and love for other people. As time passed, Rachel felt it was probably too late to report Larry Nassar. It felt like we had kind of reached an equilibrium in our life where she had begun healing and we were in a good place in our marriage and our family life. But all that was about to be turned upside down. In 2016, a newspaper article was about to give Rachel the opening she needed to challenge Larry Nassar. Mark Alizia, an investigative journalist working for the Indianapolis Star newspaper, was the journalist responsible.

9:34It was the eve of the Rio Summer Olympics. That story had nothing to do with Larry Nassar. It was all about USA Gymnastics and its policy of literally filing away sexual abuse complaints that did not meet a very narrow standard that experts had told us was exactly the wrong way to handle that. This story about abuse by coaches in U.S. gymnastics was a result of the star's five-month investigation into the body that oversees the sport in America, which is based in Indianapolis. And for Rachel, living 100 miles away in a different state, it was the end of a 16-year wait to come forward. On the morning of publication, we got an email from Rachel Denhollander of Louisville, Kentucky, who said she wasn't sure we would be interested because she was not abused by a coach.

10:42She was abused by a doctor. I was really just waiting for the opportunity to be believed. I wrote to them right away and I said, hey, this is this is what happened. and here's the evidence that I have for it and I will come forward as publicly as necessary if you can just help me get the truth out. She felt as if she had no choice because it was something she had to do. It was something that had to get out there. We went there, myself and a videographer, and it was a small home, books lining the shelves, but it was a very modest home. But this was clearly a family of two very bright, sincere people.

11:28And I knew going into this that it was going to be probably the most difficult interview I had ever done, because I would be asking her to reveal deeply, deeply personal violations that she had agreed to put her name to and her picture, which ended up on the front page of the Indianapolis Star. I found her to be intelligent. I found her to be sincere. I found her to be utterly without guile.

12:13Mark Alizia says the response was immediate. We got feedback from people who were absolutely outraged at us. They said that we were besmirching the character of a great man. But then things turned around. In the following days, we were hearing more and more reports of people who had gone to the Michigan State University police and made similar accusations against Larry Nassar going back 20 years or more. And at first it was a couple for a week and then it just grew exponentially. The fact that more women kept coming forward made the story big news. Here's Rachel. By the evening, it was on major international media outlets because of the place of prominence that Larry had.

13:10And of course, that also made me the national person to hate on, which is what happens to sexual assault survivors in general when they speak up and which is what I knew was going to happen. Rachel's public accusation and the story in the Indianapolis Star were only the beginning. And in the two years it took for Larry Nassar to face justice in court, she lost any right to a private life. On a purely practical level, our life was just utterly upended for two years. I could be in the midst of packing the kids up to go to the grocery store to get bread and milk, and I would get a call from an attorney or a journalist, and it would just completely upend our grocery trip, and I'd have to take an hour out of my day.

13:48By the time I'm done, my little kids are crying, and they need their naps, and just our entire day is just utterly disrupted. All the trauma's been dug back up, and we still don't have milk in the fridge. There were days that I didn't take my kids to the grocery store because I knew there were going to be news articles, and I wasn't sure if my face was going to be on the front page. We didn't turn on the TV or the news. After his 2017 guilty pleas in Michigan, Larry Nassar faced multi-sentencing hearings. Survivors delivered victim impact statements, a lengthy process, which for Rachel meant coming face-to-face with Nassar twice.

14:24You have to sit in court with the person who abused you and you have to describe in graphic detail right in front of them exactly what they did and exactly how it impacted you. Asking a survivor to take on that process is really asking them to relive their abuse, but to do it with an audience. It's an incredibly traumatising experience. More than 150 victim impact statements were heard by the judge. Not all the women delivered their statements in person. But on the 24th of January 2018, Rachel Den Hollander stood up and spoke to the court. My advocacy for sexual assault victims, something I cherished, Cost me my church and our closest friends.

15:03I was left alone and isolated. My sexual assault was wielded like a weapon against me, often by those who should have been the first to support and help. I was being attacked for wanting fame and attention, for making up a story to try to get money. The cost, emotional and physical, to see this through has been greater than many will ever know. Larry Nassar received his sentence from Judge Rosemary Aquilina. I'm giving you 175 years, which is 2 ,100 months. I've just signed your death warrant. Your decision to assault was precise, calculated, manipulative, devious, despicable. You do not deserve to walk outside of a prison ever again.

15:53I'm Mike Wooldridge and you're listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service. For this edition of Heart and Soul, I'm finding out about Rachel Den Hollander and how she revealed the extensive abuse committed by US gymnastics leading doctor Larry Nasser. By the time the sentencing had finished, over 200 women had come forward with abuse claims against Nasser. All because Rachel went public with her interview in the Indianapolis Star. Rachel credits the work of two women with getting the conviction. They were the prosecutor, Angie Povolitis, and the detective who took the case from the start, Andrea Munford.

16:37Andrea told me just how important she thinks it is that Rachel came forward as she did. I think she did the right thing. I think she knew in her mind it was the right time. I think she was in a place in her life. I think she was probably prompted by the Holy Spirit to say, this is the time for me to take this on. And I think it changed the way police and prosecutors do their job because so many professionals out there learned about it. I think it gave an opportunity for survivors of sexual assault, of sexual harassment, of relationship violence and stalking, a space to come forward because people were listening.

17:16Rachel was critical to taking on all of the people that tried to protect Larry Nassar. And she took it with integrity and grace and strength and resilience. and that ripple effect that comes really from her standing there saying, I'm going to do this, I'm going to be the face of this, so that other people don't have to unless they choose to, and then I will stand with them and we will make a change. Before, during, and after NASA's sentencing hearings, Rachel was going to have to pull on one of her strongest resources, her faith. She grew up being homeschooled in a strongly Christian family and said she experienced sexual abuse when she was around seven or eight from someone at her church.

18:06She felt she'd been left unsupported by many in the church community after that, although her parents had helped her and they did leave that church. So how had her faith held up during these repeated episodes of abuse? I was still a Christian, but I had wrestled very deeply with those questions. Questions of where was God in this? Is there a God? Does he care? I went through periods of very deep wrestling with my faith through this process, especially in the teen years, the later teen years and early 20s, as I was really figuring out what had happened. Rachel was trying to work out what Christianity taught about right and wrong and how that related to her own experiences of abuse.

18:49What I realized is that if truth exists, if there is right and wrong, It has to come from somewhere, right? A man does not call a line. America is changing. And so is the world. But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere. I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. I'm Tristan Redman in London. And this is The Global Story. Every weekday, we'll bring you a story from this intersection, where the world and America meet. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. We focus on the part of the internet that most people don't know about.

19:36It's called the dark web. Undercover in the furthest corners of the dark web, US special agents are on a mission to locate and rescue children from abuse. Move in now. Police! From the BBC World Service, World of Secrets, The Darkest Web follows their shocking investigations. Search for World of Secrets wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Eric Morante had always been a fighter. Age 21, he found himself with a squad stationed on a bridge in Iraq. On the morning of April 21st, 2007, a truck packed with 3 ,000 pounds of explosives was detonated just a few feet below them. this is a story about a man who turned pain into purpose therapy for me is being in the boxing ring it's just good for your soul good for your body this is season four of legacy defiant search defiant legacy wherever you get your podcasts

20:42her kid unless he first has some idea of straight so rachel decided her idea of what was straight was based in her Christian faith and belief in God, and that she was right to pursue the difficult choice of standing up to Larry Nassar. But she didn't see Nassar's sentencing as being the end of her work. She'd already turned her attention to some of the accusations of abuse made against some evangelical churches in the USA, and started to champion people who'd suffered abuse within those churches, work she still continues today. This is what Christ told us, right? This is the theme that is through the gospel is that we love God and we love those around us.

21:22But despite her strong faith, her developing work with survivors of church abuse was causing her problems. She felt that her advocacy was not being taken seriously by those in the church. As her public profile rose, she and her family began to feel unwelcome in their church. Although it subsequently acknowledged its failings, Rachel and her family eventually joined a new congregation where Pastor Jim Sevastio was in charge. It would be almost funny if you've met Rachel. My first impression was that she was very retiring. I might have even used the word a bit mousy when I soon found out that the mouse was a little bit more like a lion.

22:08We recognised that there was a great weight upon her and her family and we wanted to do all that we could to help bear that burden. If you had to sum up the impact that she's made by standing up against Larry Nassau and by speaking out in the way that she has, what would you say? Well, I say that Rachel's determination to pursue justice has come at a great cost. It's come at the cost of reputation. It's come at the cost of suspicion. Her name has been dragged through the mud. On the other hand, Rachel has received also many accolades, and there are a good number of people who love and appreciate her.

22:52But I think by and large, there are many who kind of wish she would just go away. And my statement to some people is, well, if you want it to go away, you want her to go away, deal with the issues. Stop covering things up. Rachel would be very happy to live her life among her children and her husband and her community. She's not looking for and desiring any kind of limelight. Hers is the quest that will, I think, only be finished when some of the institutions will finally implement the kinds of things that are needed for justice and righteousness to flourish.

23:43One key aspect of her Christian faith, which posed particular challenges for Rachel, was forgiveness. Sometimes during his hearings, Larry Nassar would bring a Bible into court and he spoke of praying for forgiveness. Larry wanted forgiveness to come from saying the right words or doing enough other good things to outweigh what he had done. And the reality is that it doesn't work like that. And we all know it doesn't work like that. You can do a hundred good things and it does not undo the damage that you've done to somebody else. Here is what she told Larry Nasser when she gave her statement in court.

24:19I pray you experience the soul-crushing weight of guilt so that you may someday experience true repentance and true forgiveness from God, which you need far more than forgiveness from me, though I extend that to you as well. Although she did extend her forgiveness to Nasser, Rachel took a stance that sparked some debate within parts of the evangelical church. That forgiving someone doesn't mean you shouldn't also want them to face justice. So a constant thread you see both in society and in the church is if you forgive, you won't be bitter and angry and that will help your trauma get better. And if you forgive, you're not going to bring this up again.

24:57And so again, sexual assault survivors, whistleblowers, they're the problem. They're the ones causing division. They're the ones causing disruption in the societal norms that we like to enjoy. They're the ones that require something out of us. And a very effective way to try to make sure that that doesn't happen is to wield forgiveness like a weapon. If you really forgive, you won't say anything about this ever again. You're not going to be out for vengeance. And we make justice the same thing as vengeance, and they're not the same thing. For Rachel Dan Hollander, forgiveness is not a free pass.

25:30It doesn't erase accountability, and it should never be used to silence survivors or excuse injustice. In some ways, Rachel's work had only just begun once Larry Nassar was sentenced for his crimes. She has continued to advocate for survivors of abuse, especially in evangelical churches. After years of challenging powerful institutions, what has that fight cost her? It was the reality that I never get to be a private person again. The reality that I will probably become a very hated person in this country, and for a while I was. And some of the conversation we have of do we understand what we are saddling our children with for the rest of their lives, the things that they will be able to Google, the things that their friends might say to them.

26:19It has changed our lives permanently forever, and the impact on my kids and my family will be forever. Rachel's husband, Jacob, says there is more stress in their lives than he'd ever anticipated. With four children that we homeschool, our lives are very chaotic. So trying to balance all those things with also sometimes the public scrutiny that comes along and criticisms that come along with the work that she does can be very jarring at times. So there's that kind of tension between her public work and our private lives. I also am concerned for her. She is such a passionate person and so selfless that I'm afraid sometimes what the toll will be on her physically.

27:03But the family's faith remains strong. We always ask the question, what would Christ have us do? What is the right thing to do here? And as tempting as sitting at our house turning off our phones and internet would be, it's just not what would be right. It's not what God's given us to do. And so we keep on going. For Rachel, she knows she's done the right thing. The conversation that my husband and I had is somebody has to do this. And it cannot be done any other way. Somebody has to meet Larry where he is most confident and not flinch and take the narrative from him. And it cannot be done quietly.

27:42It has to be done as loudly as possible. I would not change a thing. If I had it to do over and knew everything I knew now, I wouldn't change a thing.

27:55Determination, driven by her faith, led Rachel Den Hollander to pursue the sports doctor Larry Nassar and see him pay the price for sexually abusing more than 200 women and girls. I've been bringing you The Right Thing series for nine years now, and probably no other story's had a greater consequence for one individual, as Nassar is now serving such an extraordinarily long sentence. Rachel herself is likely to keep advocating for sexual abuse survivors until the institutions she challenges take the steps she believes are needed to ensure justice for the survivors. I'm Mike Uldrich. You've been listening to the documentary from the BBC World Service and the second part in my occasional series, The Right Thing.