Shawn Johnson is used to having all eyes on her. However, she still feels uncomfortable when her family watches her perform.
That fun fact was revealed after a video was posted on Instagram showing Shawn's daughter, Drew, watching her performances on television from 2008. Shawn married husband Andrew East in 2016, and Drew is the first child for both of them.
Andrew also comes from an athletic background. The 28-year-old is a football player who's currently a free agent. Most recently, he played with the Washington Redskins. So he knows what goes behind a good performance.
However, Shawn seems critical when it comes to watching her old routines. "Even though @shawnjohnson NEVER lets us watch her gymnastics, @olympicchannel wanted her to live tweet her performance," Andrew wrote on Instagram. "So @drewhazeleast and I are over here having a blast, Shawn not so much."
In the video, Andrew is cheering Shawn on. Then he pans the camera over to Shawn who's in the midst of a grimace. "It was OK," she says after watching a vault.
Of course, Shawn is criticizing a performance that not many of us could emulate. She started her gymnastics career at the age of 3. When she started showing promise, her parents had her work with an instructor named Liang Chow at his training facility in Des Moines, Iowa.
Even then, Liang knew that Shawn had the potential to make it to the Olympics. In 2008, Shawn was on Team USA at the ripe old age of 16 during the games held in Beijing, China. She ended up coming home with four medals. After that, she took her talents to Dancing With the Stars.
Once again, she was declared a winner. The appearance also gave her more of a wide appeal, proving that she had a lot of incredible talents. During season 15, she appeared on the all-star edition of the show and ended up in second place. However, her athletic career ended not long after her Olympics appearance, when Shawn tore her ACL in 2010. For athletes, this is a particularly painful injury.
Even though she had it surgically repaired, she didn't think she could handle training for something as big as the Olympics again. But she still had big things happening in her life. For one, she met Andrew. She was first introduced to Andrew because his brother was on a cycling team with her friend Taylor Phinney.
They got engaged in a public — and awe-inducing — way. She was asked to throw a pitch at a Chicago Cubs game. While it all went well, Andrew came out on Wrigley Field soon after with a box, aiming to propose. As you know, she said yes.
In April 2016, they got married in Franklin, Tennessee. HuffPost reported that approximately 350 people were in attendance to witness the big event. "Watching them interact during our portrait sessions was so much fun for all of us and felt more like hanging out with two awesome new friends than work," their photographer commented.
In 2019, Drew Hazel East arrived. Shawn wasn't afraid to get real about her own pregnancy expectations and the reality of the situation. "I went in with such a stubborn mindset of thinking the only way I could bring our baby into the world was naturally," she revealed on Instagram. "No meds no intervention. At 14 hours when I chose to get an epidural I felt guilty."
After 22 hours, she had to get a C-section — which also wasn't according to plan. "I felt like I had failed," she said. "But after holding our sweet girl in my arms and being told everything went well and she had made it to us safely I could have cared less." Her words are important to all of the pregnant women out there.
Now baby Drew is growing up. While she might not follow in her mom's footsteps, it's good that she'll always be able to see her during some of her proudest moments. It's strange to think about how much has happened in Shawn's life since the 2008 Olympics took place.
She retired, she fell in love, and she started a family. And she proved to the world twice that she's an incredible dancer. By looking at her Instagram feed, it's obvious that she's all about her daughter. There's no shortage of images of the two of them smiling together.
Even if Shawn may be getting self-conscious about watching her success on television, the Olympics is a great thing for children of all ages to watch. For one, it shows off some of the world's top athletes. But it can also teach a lesson. For many, reaching the Olympics is the ultimate goal.
Shawn spent so much time training for 2008. It was so rigorous that she knew she couldn't handle that same amount in 2012. If it wasn't for her injury and surgery, she might not have retired when she did. But in stepping down, she also made room for another young gymnast to shine.
The Olympics also showcases people from all over the country and the stories of their lives. Some are inspiring, and others are heartbreaking. No matter what, it's proof that people from many different backgrounds can achieve the same goal. If you're talented and hardworking, you too can reach the level that Shawn did.
One day, Drew may be interested in taking up gymnastics. And thanks to watching her mom, she'll have yet another reason to look up to her. Not many people get the chance to watch their parents at work, but it's another thing entirely to watch your parent at work while they are making Olympic history.
