Mary Lou Retton briefly appeared in a court Tuesday to enter a no-contest plea for driving under the influence in her West Virginia hometown last month, and followed up with a public statement, apologizing for the “completely unacceptable” actions that led to her arrest.
“I take full responsibility for my actions,” the U.S. gymnastics legend said in her statement about her May 17 arrest, TMZ reported. “What happened was completely unacceptable. I make no excuses. To my family, friends and my fans: I have let you down, and for that I am deeply sorry.”
The 57-year-old Olympic champion also said she’s “determined to learn and grow from this experience, and I am committed to making positive changes in my life.”
Retton was arrested on May 17 in Fairmont, West Virginia, where she was born in 1968. While she is currently based in Texas, she was visiting Fairmont for some reason and seen in a Porsche, “driving all over the roadway,” according to court documents, obtained by the Daily Mail.
Retton then pulled over at an AutoZone, where police contacted her in her still-running luxury sports car. Police later said there was an “odor of alcohol” coming from her, the Daily Mail reported. Retton also slurred her words and had a bottle of wine on the passenger seat next to her.
Court records also show that she failed all three phases of a standard field sobriety text, the Daily Mail said. She refused to submit to a roadside preliminary breath test, as well as a secondary chemical test of her blood. She was charged with one count of “driving under influence of alcohol, controlled substances, or drugs,” then released after she personally posted a $1,500 bond.
Retton’s arrest continues a tumultuous couple years for the decorated athlete and media personality, who was once considered to be America’s sweetheart after winning the individual all-around gold medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Last year, Retton also was involved in a sad and messy controversy over how she, a reported multimillionaire, needed to raise nearly $500,000 in donations by claiming she didn’t have health insurance to cover the costs of a hospital stay for what was described as a rare and near-fatal bout of pneumonia.
Retton’s four daughters set up the fundraiser on spotfund.com in October 2023, saying they needed help to cover their mother’s hospital bills. They revealed that Retton was in the hospital “fighting for her life” and said they needed the money because their mother didn’t have health insurance.
While the campaign earned $200,000 in its first day — and $459,000 total — some in the public and the media began to ask why someone as famous and, presumably, as wealthy as Retton didn’t have health insurance.
Retton’s May arrest is sure to add to questions about what’s happened in recent years to the decorated athlete and media personality who once came as close to anyone to defining the idea of America’s sweetheart.
In her statement Tuesday, Retton said she’s “determined to learn and grow from this experience, and I am committed to making positive changes in my life.”
Two months after Retton’s health crisis, she sat for an interview with the “Today” show in early 2024, saying that the “bottom line” is that she couldn’t afford health insurance. She blamed her plight on the COVID-19 pandemic, her 2018 divorce and pre-existing conditions from multiple surgeries over the years from sports-related injuries.
In another interview, Retton also defended her daughters against the backlash, saying, “They didn’t deserve that.” She also said, “They were just trying to take care of me. I don’t care about the naysayers. There are trolls everywhere. It’s what makes us America. Everybody’s got an opinion, but it is what it is.”
But criticism continued to grow over the view that Retton and her daughters still had not been forthcoming about her financial challenges, her reasons for not having insurance and how they used the $459,000 from the spotfund.com campaign.
The Daily Mail subsequently obtained court records, which showed that Retton received $2 million in her 2018 divorce settlement from former Texas Longhorns quarterback-turned real estate developer Shannon Kelly. She also was poised to potentially earn $2 million more in compensation over a legal dispute with the manufacturer of two metal hip replacements that went wrong, the Daily Mail reported.