Mary Lou Retton Olympic gold-winning gymnast in ICU

She needs a fundraiser?

 

Thank you for being a friend.

 

This all seems a bit odd. The Internet tells me she is worth $5-8 million. Even a third of that and she should be able to handle $50K without much problem. And, as other news sources have said, she doesn't have health insurance? That's crazy if true. Plus, a "rare form of pneumonia" where you can't breathe on your on? I'm no doctor, but I think that's called COVID.

 

thoughts and prayers

 

Slowly but surely closing in on four decades ago.

 

The internet generally doesn't know **** about people's personal wealth.

Most Olympic athletes are poor. Even the famous ones live relatively modest lives.

This is especially true as they age because the money from sponsorships and appearances dries up fast.

 

Sad, but true. I was so sad to hear this, I can certainly see where she will need help if she doesn't have insurance. She is a Houston legend; I would hope we could help her in this time of need.

 

She lives in a mansion, she is not poor by any real standards.

Her family absolutely can afford to pay these bills, but why cut into your inheritance when you can get the stupid public to pay for it. Maybe she could get donations from US gymnastics and the sex predators she tried to protect.

 

$50,000? And on a ventilator? That should cover about a day or two of her stay.

Hope she recovers fully.

 

I do feel bad for her and her family and hope she recovers. There are a lot of unanswered questions here. I agree there are a lot of medal winning athletes who go broke and live modest means. I've met a lot of Judo medalists including gold medalists who aren't wealthy and even poor. In the US most of them make money teaching and running camps.

For sports like gymnastic, track and swimming there's a lot more money to be made in endorsements and Mary Lou Retton made a lot of money at her height. I'm wonder what happened to all that money? There are plenty of stories of pro-athletes blowing all of their money on all sorts of things. Being scammed out of it by hangers on and others. I'm wondering if that is what happened to her.

Also for health insurance most athletes are aware that injuries and things can happen that derail their career. That's why pro-athletes of all people should have health insurance. I really wonder why she doesn't have health insurance.

 

she was a Olympic champion, w commericals / endorsement deals worldwide for numerous products, including Wheaties, Energizer batteries, Revco Drug Stores, and Purex laundry detergent.

These deals, combined with her motivational speaking engagements and television appearances, further boosted her financial standing.

 

Mary Lou is the richest 4' 9" adult from West Virginia.

 

30 years ago

 

She's a hardcore conservative that is against government protecting kids, probably a COVID denier and won't get health insurance bc Obamacare!

Can't believe she raised all of this money off of dummies.

 

I would venture to say most olympic gold medal winners are not poor. And ones that were national icons (her, Phelps, Carl Lewis, Biles, etc.) will likely always have a steady source of income.

She was also married to somebody slightly well-to-do... now I'm not sure if she's still married, so if that is no longer the case perhaps she is struggling financially more than people expect.

 

You would be very wrong. In the US, perhaps not. But overall? Yeah.

The icons that can parlay their status into decades-long fame? Yeah, they're rich.

But gold medal winners? That's no guarantee.

MLR won her medals in 1984. Unless she either married rich or is extraordinarily responsible and savvy with her money, I would expect her to be living pretty modestly.

The truth is it's expensive to even be an Olympic athlete, and then once you're done, it's not like there's a huge market for your skills out there.

 

She's still one of the most famous olympians worldwide ever... hence why news about her can still be headlines on ESPN or generate an actual thread here.

As far as her income goes... again, she was doing quite well throughout her 40's and she was married to somebody well off. Now reading about things looks like they got divorced in 2018 so yes, there's a chance that without a decent settlement (and no longer doing any public speaking due to her supporting the ones that were abusing for years), perhaps she's no longer in a good place.

But she basically was the standard for "olympic icon"...

 

How old was she when she hit it big? 16?

Who knows where that money went. She hasn't been culturally relevant since like the early 1990's when US women's gymnastics had another big moment.

 

She was in Naked Gun 3 in 1994...