Erin Andrews’ father feared for his sportscaster daughter’s life after a nude peephole video of her hit the Internet — a trauma that has turned her into a “shell of the person” she used to be, he testified Wednesday in her $75 million civil trial.
“I really thought that someone was trying to kill my daughter,” Steve Andrews told jurors as Erin sobbed quietly.
His voice cracking at times, Andrews recalled the shock and horror of discovering the recording posted online in 2009, saying his daughter was left “terrified.”
Erin Andrews, 37, is suing the owner and manager of the Nashville Marriott, where, in 2008, stalker Michael David Barrett doctored a peephole, allowing him to film the nude video that he tried to sell and then posted online.
The Andrews family was informed of Barrett’s October 2009 arrest the night before Erin was to return to the air for ESPN for the first time since the video went viral.
Steve Andrews said he and his daughter were left “dumbfounded” by the FBI’s explanation.
“They told us . . . that [Barrett] had called the Marriott and said he wanted to know if she was staying there,” he said. “They said yes. Then he wanted a room right next to her.
“I remember reading [the FBI report] and thinking, how does this happen? That somebody would call a hotel and ask if Erin Andrews is there and they say yes?
“Then they put him in a room next to her,” the dad said. “And he’s up against the door videotaping my daughter. She’s undressed, she’s getting ready for a football game. If this guy had been a killer, she’d be dead.”
Years later, his once-outgoing daughter, who now works for Fox Sports, is a shell of her former self, terrified by even a tap on the shoulder, the dad said.
“My daughter has been scared for eight years. Eight years she has been terrified that there’s something else out there. That there’s someone else looking for her.
“She’s depressed,” Steve added. “She cries, she’s full of anxiety, she’s a very, very changed person. She’s not the girl that we used to know.”
He recalled the frantic phone call in July 2009 from Erin, who was sobbing about the videos that had suddenly become public.
“She was just screaming, ‘I’m on the Internet. I’m naked. Everything I’ve worked for is done. We’ve got to get it down. We’ve got to get it down,’ ” she told him. “I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing.”
A former front desk supervisor at the Nashville Marriott, Nina Rivera-Keen, also took the stand, testifying that employees were trained not to give out guest room numbers.
Jurors were then shown Barrett’s Marriott reservation, which had a request to be in an adjoining room to Erin Andrews.
During a cross-examination by the hotel’s lawyer, Rivera-Keen claimed the local hotel never actually received Barrett’s request.