Gymnastics made Mary Lou Reton a star and damaged it forever

Mary Lou Reton became a real American hero when he was still a teenager, picking up a spectacular gold in the individual versatile competition at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games at the age of 16.

The price of these glories had to be paid later in life.

“She couldn’t even breathe fully when I spoke to her, she takes these little breaths,” the ex-brother Shaun Kelley told her.

It is far from when she proudly became the first female athlete to adorn a box of wheat during her Olympic year.

Retton, now 57 years old, frequently carries an oxygen cannula, remains under medication and has undergone many debilitating hip surgeries which have left it physically in difficulty. It is a heavy price that his career as Olympian made on his body, according to Kelley, who said that he had spoken for the last time with Reton a few weeks ago.

The formerly biting gymnast with 4 -inch 9 inches collapsed in the news on May 17 when it was puff After the cops of his hometown of Fairmont, in Virginia-Western, would have found it in his 2019 Porsche Macan in a car park. An arrest report said she was shaking alcohol, supported her words and had a bottle of wine by her side.

Ironically, she was just two kilometers from her namesake Mary Lou Reton Drive When it happened.

Kelley said that Reton – who also has a house in Boerne, Texas – continues to undergo treatment for long and long pulmonary problems and it was Alarmed by the presumed presence Wine.

“She is on all these drugs and a drink could eliminate her chemistry from the brain,” he said, adding that since the incident-from which she quickly bail out prison-“she heals” and is lying in Virginia-Western.

“She is a grandmother and a given person, she raised four incredible girls,” he added, saying that she hoped she improves. He also said that Reton has no history of alcohol abuse he knew.

Reton – whose girls are all with ex Shannon Kelley, whom she divorced after 27 years of marriage in 2018 – underwent another fear of health in 2023 when she contracted “a very rare form of pneumonia”, according to a position carried out by her second daughter, McKenna Kelley.

“Girl, I should be dead,” she told People magazine a year later, describing how she spent a month in the hospital.

At one point, the doctors told her daughters – Shayla Rae, 30, McKenna, 28, Skyla, 25, and Emma Jean, 22 – “to say goodbye”.

She crossed, but was exhausted.

“My lungs are so marked. It will be a recovery life. My physique was the only thing I had and it was removed from me. It’s embarrassing,” she added to people.

Worse still, she had no insurance, saying in another interview with NBC, in which she appeared with an oxygen cannula in her nose, “I simply could not allow me”, citing her divorce and the underlying health problems which had been left to her, after 30 orthopedic surgeries.

McKenna has created an online fundraising which brought in nearly $ 500,000 from fans, sportsmen and public figures shocked by the way Reton apparently fell into such difficult moments.

McKenna told USA Sports last year that her mother had started to encounter money problems during the cocovable pandemic, Which limited his ability to earn money “Because she was unable to work and say speeches for two years due to the pandemic.”

However, it seems that Reton exchanged an older Porsche for his current during this same period, obtaining the new car in December 2021, according to a Carfax report seen by the post.

Reton had retired from professional gymnastics in 1986, shortly after his triumph of gold medal. She took advantage of her fame and had signed approval agreements with many products, then became a commentator of NBC at the 1988 Olympic Games. She wrote a daily chronicle through the 1992 and 1996 Olympic Games for USA Today and co-organized a television program, “Road to Olympic Gold”, according to her USA gymnastics biography.

Reton also tried films, appearing in “Scrooged” in 1988 and “Naked Gun 33 1/3” from 1994, as well as to make appearances in shows such as “Baywatch” and “Knots Landing” and continuing to take reservations and as a motivator and “fitness ambassador”. Her latest high -level reservations were an advertisement of the 2014 Super Bowl XLVII and a passage in 2018 on “Dancing with the Stars”, where she finished in ninth place.

However, after the good will brought with the collection of funds from Reton pneumonia, People started asking questions.

It was pointed out that it was illegal to deny the coverage of people with underlying conditions. Others asked where any excess of money from fundraising, which initially set its target at $ 50,000, went.

The family said they donated money not used for treatment to the American Lung Association, although the charity said that it would not comment on individual donations when contacted by the position.

It also appeared that during her divorce from the quarter-back, which became a real estate promoter Shannon Kelley, she received almost $ 2 million in cash, According to the Daily Mailas well as the benefits of the sale of two houses. She also received a vehicle worth $ 43,000, which she then exchanged.

Reton, who did not respond to requests for comments, also reached an amicable settlement with the manufacturer of his metal hip traces, Biomet, in 2019 for an unknown amount, according to the mail report.

Reton’s Corporate LLC, which she used for her speeches, is now inactive but she has launched new businesses.

She trained a company entitled Forever Our Heritage, described as “for mothers and girls”, which has organized a female gymnastics competition each year since 2022.

The Forever Our Legacy competition should then take place in South Carolina, Pennsylvania and Michigan in February 2026. The event also includes opportunities for meeting with Reton and his daughter, which was also a competitive gymnast.

The mother-daughter duo also has a line of gymnastics equipment with the company Speith and runs a non-profit organization called the McKenna Kelley Foundation.

Reton also joined a Michigan leotard juice company in 2023 to sell its own theme leotard, and McKenna sells video messages on Cameo for $ 100 each.

Shaun Kelley also confirmed that Reton was delighted to attend the youngest daughter of Emma Jean with the former football star at the University of Arkansas, Hudson Clark next month.

“They inspire me and they do it every day,” said the four girls. “These are extraordinary young women and my biggest achievement. Take my five medals. I will take my daughters at any time. ”