11/11/2025
God gives courage to those crushed in spirit…..
Rachael Denhollander was the first woman to publicly accuse USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar of sexual abuse. Telling the truth opened the floodgates - but came at great personal cost...
Rachael went to Nassar when she was just 15, suffering from chronic back pain. She’d been a gymnast, and Nassar was one of the foremost doctors for the sport in the US.
"What I now know is that when I walked in his door, I immediately became his next victim," says Rachael.
Nassar covered her with a cloth so that her mother, who was in the room, couldn’t see what he was doing. He then began to abuse her. Rachael now knows she was one of many.
"He was sexually abusing young girls under the guise of medical treatment every single day, and multiple times a day," she says.
Rachael told her mum what was happening – but they felt they just couldn’t challenge someone with such powerful connections in the sport.
“The discussion I had with my mom was one voice is never going to be enough,” Rachael says.
It would be 16 years before she felt able to tell her story.
During the Rio Olympics 2016, the Indianapolis Star newspaper published an investigation into USA Gymnastics, questioning how they dealt with sexual abuse complaints.
This was the opportunity Rachael had been waiting for. She spoke to a journalist on the paper, and within hours, her account was making international headlines.
"And of course, it also made me the national person to hate on, which is what happens to sexual assault survivors in general when they speak up."
At first, Nassar denied everything – and his supporters accused Rachael of staining the character of a great man. But then, other victims began to step forward, and Nassar was brought to court.
Rachael had to face him in court twice, and describe the abuse in graphic detail. In her court statement she said her decision to speak out had left her alone and isolated.
“My sexual assault was wielded like a weapon against me, often by those who should have been the first to support and help,” she said. “I was being attacked for wanting fame and attention, for making up a story to try to get money.”
But by the time Nassar was sentenced to 175 years in prison, over 200 women had come forward.
The cost to her was great. She told the court she’d lost the support of her church during her ordeal.
“A constant thread you see both in society and in the church is if you forgive, you won't be bitter and angry and that will help your trauma get better – and if you forgive, you're not going to bring this up again.”
She says this thinking can be used to silence victims – implying sexual assault survivors and whistle blowers are the problem, not the perpetrators. She says justice should run alongside Christian forgiveness.
And ultimately it was her faith which drove her to do the right thing.
“If I had it to do over and knew everything I knew now, I wouldn't change a thing,” she says.
Rachael now advocates for survivors of sexual abuse in churches in the US.
🎧 Hear her story on Heart and Soul: https://bbc.in/4oVtD4A