Artistic gymnastics is my favorite sport besides pommel horse-ing (still obsessed with you, Stephen) so Shawn Johnson and Nastia Liukin are very important to me. When I was but a wee little gal, I looked up to these icons and adored watching them gracefully execute ridiculously challenging routines and collect medals at the 2008 Olympics. These two started out as BFFLs — that was the terminology back in the day, I recall — but it seems they wound up being victims of the classic ~people pitting women against each other~ pattern. Apparently, the former gymnasts went almost a decade without speaking. So, what exactly happened between them? And are the girlies friends now? Here’s a breakdown of the Shawn and Nastia “feud.” (Thank you, Shawn, for spilling the tea in great detail.)
In a new interview with Access Hollywood, Shawn opened up about why she fell out with Nastia when they were younger. “Nastia and I were best friends, training, and at the Olympics we were roommates,” she told AH. “We were 16 and 18 years old, we were kids. I felt like we were under the spotlight and scrutiny so much to be each other’s top, biggest competitors.” In the beginning, they grew close quickly and embraced being both “best friends and competitors,” but as time went on, outside opinions influenced their bond. “When the world started kind of interjecting how we should handle it, they said we should also be each other’s worst enemies as well,” Shawn told the outlet.
After the athletes went eight years without speaking, it was their partners who encouraged them to reconnect. “Our boyfriends at the time got so tired of hearing us talk about each other that they said. ‘Enough of this, just go talk to each other again,’ and we did,” Shawn revealed. Not men having a positive effect on something?!? She and Nastia met up for a reunion lunch that changed everything.
According to Shawn, they healed their relationship at that lunch. “Ever since then, it’s just like we haven’t skipped a beat,” she shared. “It was amazing. It also was really confusing for both of us because we were really nervous. We didn’t know how to rekindle that … and it was truly within like two minutes we were back to being best friends.” Apparently, Shawn and Nastia both shared basically the same sentiment with each other: “I don’t know what happened but I miss you and I miss us.”
In July 2023, the besties had a double date with their partners at the ESPYS (for the non-sports girlies — that stands for Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly) in Los Angeles. Shawn was glowing in a blue dress, Nastia looked pretty in pink, and they smiled and laughed as they posed together on the carpet. Yay for female friendship 💞.
