‘He looked me in the eye the entire time’: Aly Raisman shares what it was like to face Larry Nassar in court

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Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman said Thursday that she hasn’t felt well since delivering her powerful victim impact statement against former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar in court last week.

The Needham native told Hota Kotb on the Today show that she looked at photos of the doctor online to prepare herself before facing him in a Michigan courtroom to deliver her statement, joining more than 150 women who told horrific stories of being molested by Nassar under the guise of medical treatment. The sports doctor was sentenced Wednesday to 40 to 175 years in prison.

Raisman has said Nassar began sexually abusing her when she was 15. She told Kotb that she last saw him at a training camp in 2015.

“I didn’t know how I’d feel,” Raisman said. “But when I walked in there being with this army of survivors — and I didn’t know most of these girls and these women — but I just felt an instant connection. We were hugging each other. We really are an army of survivors and this is just the beginning for us.”

The two-time Olympian said as she went to give her statement — which was printed in full by The New York Times a day later — she almost felt as if she were going to “compete.”

“At the Olympics you block out everything,” she said. “And in that moment, I blocked out everything. I forgot that people were watching me, I forgot the media was over there, I forgot that Larry was right there, and I just spoke. And I felt like I really had to be strong. I feel a responsibility.”

But afterwards, Raisman said she “was sick,” almost passed out, and had a bad headache for hours.

“Ever since then — I still don’t feel good now,” she said. “It’s very — it’s hard to put into words — but it makes me literally sick all the stress and the trauma of everything. But for that moment I had to be strong. But I’m very, very exhausted from it.”

Delivering her statement in the courtroom, Raisman said she was surprised that Nassar was looking at her the entire time.

“Every time I made eye contact with him and even when I stared at him, he looked me in the eye the whole entire time,” she said. “It was crazy. I did not expect that at all.”

Nassar apologized to his victims in court but also said in a statement to the judge, “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

“He deserves to suffer,” Raisman said of Nassar’s letters to the judge in his case. “It’s disgusting.”

Kotb asked if Raisman felt justice had been served.

“No, I mean, it’s not something where you instantly just feel better,” Raisman said. “We need to hold these organizations accountable. USA Gymnastics, United States Olympic Committee, MSU, they need an independent investigation. This is bigger than Larry Nassar. We have to get to the bottom of how this disaster happened. If we don’t figure out how it did, we can’t be confident that it won’t happen again.”

The 23-year-old, who said she has never been contacted by either sports organization since speaking about her experience, said she plans to continue to push for change to ensure “this never happens again.”