McKayla Maroney Reveals Graphic Details of Larry Nassar Encounters

McKayla Maroney gave graphic details of her encounters with Larry Nassar, the former Team USA Gymnastics doctor convicted of sexually assaulting more than 200 women, in a new interview with Dateline.

“He told me he was going to do a checkup on me, and that was the first time I was abused,” Maroney told NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie.

Maroney said she was molested during a checkup and examination.

“He said that nobody would understand this and the sacrifice it takes to get to the Olympics, so you can’t tell people this,” the 22-year-old said. “He didn’t say it in a way that was mean or anything like that. I actually was like, ‘That makes sense. I don’t want to tell anyone about this.’ I didn’t beleive they would understand.”

Maroney said she felt like she was being let in on a little secret. She said she was molested “every time I saw him” and she saw him “hundreds” of times.

Maroney told Guthrie she thought Nassar’s examinations, which included invasive pelvic treatments were legitimate. It was not until one night during a trip in Tokyo when she was 15 years old she realized something was wrong.

During the flight to the 2011 world championships, Nassar gave her a sleeping aide, Maroney said. When she got to his hotel room, she was not “feeling like herself.”

At first, there were three other people in the room with her – fellow gymnasts Aly Raisman and Jordyn Wieber and a trainer. One by one, they were dismissed, leaving Maroney alone with Nassar.

“And then I got worked on,” she said. “[It] was very, very hard for me not to acknowledge the fact that … this was not treatment. I was being abused. I was bawling, naked on a bed, him on top of me, like fingering me. I thought I was going to die. It was escalating.”

Maroney said Nassar became a different person during the assault.

“I didn’t feel like it was him anymore. It was this other thing that took over. The dark part of him,” she told Guthrie. “When he was done, I was so happy that I could walk away from that. I felt like I just escaped something.”

When she rushed to her own room, she was afraid her coaches would yell at her for being up so late.

The next day, she hoped someone would “see it in my eyes that something really bad just happened to me, that they would ask me.”

But no one did. So, she told USA Gymnastics coach John Geddert, who did not react. Three people corroborated the conversation.

“I just said, ‘Last night, it was like Larry was fingering me,’” Maroney said. “I said this loud.”

Geddert was suspended in January after gymnasts accused him of physical and verbal abuse. He is also under criminal investigation in Michigan. Although he did not comment on the situation to NBC News, he said in a lawsuit he was “fooled” by Nassar.

USA Gymnastics said it was not aware of Maroney’s conversation with Geddert. According to the organization, they did not know about Nassar’s abuse until a coach heard Raisman and gymnast Maggie Nichols talking about Nassar.

Raisman said she “always felt like Nassar was obsessed” with Maroney.

Maroney’s interview with Gurthrie aired on Sunday.