McKayla Maroney says Larry Nassar abused her 'hundreds of times' in first TV interview

McKayla Maroney says she was molested “hundreds of times” by former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, beginning when she was just 13.
 
The Olympic gymnast, 22, was among more than 200 women who came forward in 2017 to accuse Nassar, 54, of sexually abusing them over a number of years.
 
In her first interview since going public with her allegations last year, Maroney claims her first experience of abuse at the physician’s hands occurred during her first check-up at age 13.

RELATED: Gymnasts confront alleged abuser Larry Nassar in court
 
“He didn’t say it in a way that was, like, mean or anything like that. I actually was like, ‘That makes sense, I don’t want to tell anybody about this’.”

Maroney won global admiration during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, as a member of the ‘Fierce Five’ US gymnastics team that won a gold medal.

“Your coaches are just always watching you and wanting to keep you skinny,” she adds. 

“I had a dream to go to the Olympics, and the things that I had to endure to get there were unnecessary and disgusting,” she wrote.
 
“It seemed whenever and wherever [Nassar] could find the chance, I was ‘treated’.”
 
The former athlete alleged a particularly disturbing encounter with Nassar occurred when she was 15 and flew “all day and night” to Tokyo with her team.

“He’d given me a sleeping pill for the flight, and the next thing I know, I was all alone with him in his hotel room getting a ‘treatment’,” she wrote.

“I thought I was going to die that night.”
 
Nassar is currently serving three concurrent jail sentences of up to 175 years, having plead guilty to a number of sexual assault charges earlier this year. 
 
An assistant attorney general at his court hearing in Michigan labelled him "the most prolific child molester in history."