Shawn Johnson East

And for me...

I was reliving everything from the first time, but I felt healthier.

I don't know.

It took a long time.

I would say I retired the first time at 16.

Seven years before I felt like I was truly healthy again.

When I was 16 on the show,

I was coming out of gymnastics, a lot of that I loved, a lot of that was beautiful and perfect.

There was a lot of toxic culture in gymnastics that we've all heard about.

When I went to dancing at 16, my partner, Mark Vallis, and the show for me at 16,

became a very healing place for me.

They kind of took me under their wing as like a little sister and I got to see good people who cared about me as a human and not as someone who just needed to work and win medals.

And so it was very healing for me at 16, though traumatizing in the sense of, like, I would lock myself in the room because I was so embarrassed to go on and dance in these little skimpy dresses and stuff, which were so out of my comfort zone.

But it was very healing.

I found a family there that I trusted.

So when I retired the second time and Dina called, who's the casting director of Dancing, it felt like my family –

There was so much chaos going around when I retired.

A lot of very disappointed people, sponsors, agents, everybody did not like that I retired right before the Olympics in 2012.

And dancing felt like I could come home.

It was people who loved me for me, though I was still performing on the show.