Cheer (2020) s02e05 Episode Script

1 We were so close to that finish line.
It ended so abruptly that I felt like we just were mourning the situation.
We could have competed.
We were that ready.
And we didn't even get to prepare to tell each other goodbye for an entire season working together.
Just still trying to process the whole thing.
It's a way bigger purpose than just a trophy.
There's something you're working for that maybe nobody thinks is that big of a deal, but that's where you can go and get away from life's problems for a little bit.
Cheerleading is a lot of people's happy place, and, um it can keep people safe and out of trouble.
No one responds to challenges better than Texans, so let's muster our traditional Texas spirit and together defeat COVID-19.
You exhale out exhale out of your nose in three, two, one.
Exhale, exhale, exhale.
All right, catch yourself.
Other side in three, two, one, exhale, exhale, exhale.
What's this? - Ready? - Yeah.
Exhale out of your nose in two, one, exhale, exhale, exhale.
Other nostril, you ready? - Mm-hmm.
Okay.
- Don't sneeze on me.
Ready? All right, three, two, one.
That's it.
You're good.
You're done.
Good job, Maddy.
Okay.
Bring your tubes to her.
Because of COVID, we didn't get to compete last year, so we did have a lot of people return.
We have Gabi back.
We have Maddy Brum.
We have La'Darius back.
Unfortunately Morgan graduated.
She's no longer here.
Lexi is not here, but we have other people that are stepping up.
We have Gill back.
Cassadee Dunlap and Arielle Lindsey, incredible female tumblers.
So we lost people, but we have returners that are just incredibly talented.
Coming into this year, I think we all were a lot more prepared, knowing, like, what we needed to put in, especially with COVID going on.
We came into this year with so much protocol, like, so much following the rules and everything like that.
And then they tell us Monica isn't here all first semester.
You know, I only had a day with them when they got here.
We told them that I was going to L.
A.
to do some PR stuff for just a couple weeks, and, you know, not that I wanted to tell them a fib, but it wasn't announced yet that I was on the show, and so I had to keep that a secret until Dancing with the Stars made the announcement.
You know her as the tough-as-nails coach on the hit docuseries Cheer.
My goal was to be the best cheer program in the country.
But her next championship can only be won in the ballroom.
It's Monica Aldama.
This is one competition I was born to win.
All of my former cheerleaders know how big of a fan I am of that show, because we actually had a pyramid one year named the "Dancing with the Stars" pyramid, because I had some crazy idea from watching Dancing with the Stars.
My job here is always the priority, but, you know, everyone was very supportive of me doing that.
All of my old, old cheerleaders were really happy for me because they knew I was such a big fan.
All right, Monica Aldama, we love you in Cheer, you led, by the way, your Navarro cheer squad to victory 14 times, so you're all about competition.
I know that, and we have a message for you from Jerry Harris, one of your champion cheerleaders.
Let's take a look.
Congratulations, Monica, for getting picked to be on Dancing with the Stars! You deserve this! Yes! I'm so, so happy for you.
I can't wait to vote for you every week, cheer for you, and just scream at the TV! Monica, tell us what you're gonna bring to the ballroom floor.
Most of the rookie class was like, "Why did we come here?" And our coach, the queen we wanted to come here and be coached by wasn't here.
We were like, "What's the point?" We don't wanna work hard, we don't wanna keep pushing ourselves.
We want her in the room.
because when she's in the room, the environment is completely different.
They always say, like, the vets are usually the leaders, but it's, like, almost very hard for us to try to be the leaders because we didn't get the full experience as a Navarro cheerleader last year.
So, sometimes we're sitting there, like, "Yes, you want us to be leaders, but we don't know what we're doing.
" Lift your nose for me.
Tilt your head back.
Exhale in three, two, one.
Exhale, exhale Kailee Peppers is a new assistant coach.
She actually was here part-time back in 2017-18 year, and she cheered for me for three years.
You know, Kailee was always a leader on the team when she was an athlete, and having just that eye for what needs to be done and the style of routines that we do.
She's definitely someone that I put my trust in to help me, you know, get through this year.
Hey! One, two, three, five! So I cheered here for a couple years, and then I ended up taking a year off of school, and I coached here that year, and then after I coached here a year, I was like, "Okay.
I think I'm not ready to hang up my cheer shoes.
" So I went to Texas Tech and I cheered at Texas Tech for two years.
And the entire time I was there, I was like, "Monica, I'm coming back.
" And so, she was like, "Okay, we'll see.
" I graduated and I was like, "I'm coming back.
" She was like, "We have a spot, let's go.
" It kind of happened so abruptly.
She was going on Dancing with the Stars.
I found out three days before she left.
It was hard for her to be away, you know.
Girls, we need to figure out what we're gonna do with our head on the set, because we're all doing different things every time.
- For what part? - For the set.
So snap and then look, and then look back to the side on the dip It's a little weird sometimes, because a lot of them are my age, and some of them are even older than me, but I feel like everyone's adults, and so we just kind of understand each other, and we know the line between, you know, friend and coach, and I think that that has been a huge thing that's made it easy for me here.
You guys, listen! Why are we talking so much? I feel like I'm talking over 500 voices.
- Sorry.
- It's okay.
Don't be sorry, be better.
Okay.
Monica has structure.
Our assistant coaches, honestly, if we're gonna be real, they're just not Monica.
They're just not.
Like, when you observe, like, when you're a person that observes, you know how things should run, and it's just like not saying that they're run bad, like, things are just bad or anything, it's just not what we're used to, and we have to adapt to that.
And I'm like, "These people don't know how to teach you this, but I do, because I watch everybody's position.
" I could tell you what a tumbler girl does, a mid-layer does, a shoulder stand does.
I can tell you what a top girl do, a tumbler boy, a stunter boy, all that stuff.
I can show you where your feet need to be, where your hands need to be.
I can tell you where you need to grab for a mid-layer.
It's just something I've observed from my years in cheer, and some people can't do that, and it's a gift.
Don't be annoying.
Be cute.
Be cute.
She doesn't exactly know everything she's doing right now.
She's having to do it on her own for the first time, and I understand that that can be really hard on someone, you know, but if she wasn't ready, she shouldn't have stepped up to do it.
It was more of, we were happy for Monica, but there was also that side of us that missed her.
But I don't think any of us would personally be mad at her for doing what she wanted to do, you know? None of us would be mad at her for that.
Okay.
Also Listen, I want to see us do the backhand immediates, and I want the side spot to catch for two counts, and clean.
Because I feel like right now our double downs are still kind of No.
Monica, I don't care what she doing.
She can dance with the stars all she want, she can make it to the end, and she can go again.
But at the end of the day, we're gonna get this team where it needs to be.
New this morning, a fan-favorite reality star from the Netflix docuseries Cheer under investigation by the FBI.
Twenty-one-year-old Jerry Harris accused of soliciting explicit photos and sex from minors.
These allegations, right now, stem from two 14-year-old twins who say they were harassed by Harris online and at cheer competitions.
The twins tell USA Today this started when they were 13 and Harris was 19 Federal agents executed a search warrant I was here in my room when I got the call about Jerry.
And immediately my heart my heart completely sank.
I honestly thought I was living in a in a bad dream.
I literally couldn't wrap could not wrap my head around any of that.
I felt like someone had just, like, died.
And I'm just scrolling through Twitter and I see Jerry.
This ain't true.
This ain't this can't be true.
I started crying.
And I called Gabi, and she is bawling.
I completely broke down.
I was, like, screaming.
Like, I was literally screaming and crying at the same time.
And, um I remember Maddy came out of her apartment and she just hugged me.
We all thought we knew every little piece of him when we didn't, and losing that person is a lot, it's a lot on people, it's a lot on everyone.
I felt like I just sunk very deep.
I kind of just sunk into a hole and cried, and cried, and cried, and cried, and cried.
And then I called my mom.
And, like, I was just talking to her, asking her, like like, how? Like, I don't, um I kept asking her the same question, "I don't understand.
" Like, I was just there.
Like, he never said anything about this stuff to me, and, like I could have helped stop, or mis Like, mis Guide him somewhere else, or I don't Like, I just kept asking myself questions.
I guess I just couldn't find the right words or the right answer.
I was on the stage at Dancing with the Stars in dress rehearsal for our very first live show.
The executive producer came up to me and showed me her phone, and asked me if I had seen the headline in the news that day.
Dancing the foxtrot with her partner Val, it's Monica Aldama.
It was like an out-of-body experience at the time.
I felt like I couldn't breathe.
I was already terrified.
You had a slow start and what I really loved about you is that you you went for it and I could tell when you felt good, like, it felt good for you.
I did the show and then I went back to my trailer.
I didn't even wanna look at my phone because I was scared.
And I didn't want to hear any more because I was in such a vulnerable position at the time with what I was going through, and I couldn't take the weight of all it.
And I just I just didn't wanna read it.
I couldn't do anything about it and I just didn't want to read it.
And, um I We had a team meeting that night, and I it really felt like a funeral, and I've never seen the kids cry so hard.
It was just an awful situation.
Um, It was a really tough week, because I wasn't here.
Hang on one second.
Attorneys for twin teenage boys have now filed a lawsuit against the local breakout star of the Netflix docuseries Cheer.
It claims Harris, a celebrity cheerleader, solicited nude photos from the Texas boys beginning when they were 13 Listen.
I loved Jerry Harris.
I watch Cheer just like everybody else.
I thought it was such a inspirational, lovely show, and Jerry was my favorite, and I shed a few tears when he shed a few tears.
Right? He was lovable.
But until you're behind closed doors with a person, you don't know them.
You can fall in love with somebody on TV.
People defending him, "He would never do this.
" Even his closest friends.
"He would never do this.
" You don't know.
You don't know.
Unless you are his victim, you don't know.
But coming forward as a survivor is extremely difficult.
You put yourself out there to be judged, and criticized, and called names, and shamed, and broken.
And that's why a lot of survivors will never come forward, because they've already been broken, that they just can't take any more pain.
These boys are still children, and they had the courage to put their faces on this, and to speak up to make sure that this person could never sexually touch a child ever again.
Actually, you might I feel like I think the thing that was really compelling to both of the boys, initially, with cheerleading was this sense of community, and a group of people that they could be with and really be 100% themselves without feeling self-conscious and and without having fear of, um, judgement.
You know, middle school is hard for everyone, um and I think it was particularly difficult for kids that are a little bit different.
It was a huge relief for them to have a place to go, a group of people to be with where they could be themselves.
One day in December 2018, so this was my first-year season, he messaged me on my private Instagram account on his private Instagram account, like, basically just saying, "Hey.
" And he asked how old I was, and I told him that I was 13.
And then after that, right off the bat, he asked me, "Can I have butt pics?" Or "Can you send butt pics?" And Had anybody ever asked you such a question before? No.
One, two, three, four, five, six Yes, Jerry.
One, two, three, four I already knew of Jerry because he was on Cheetahs and the season prior they went undefeated, and they had a famous vlog channel, so I would always see him on there.
So, I knew of the team, and at that point, that was me and Sam's, like, dream team.
Like, we both were really in love with everything that we like, everything that was portrayed to be.
So I already was, like, kind of aware of who he was.
Hey, y'all.
I'm back as a star.
It's me, Jerry "The Baddest-in-the-Game" Harris.
I was kind of starstruck, and I didn't want him to not like me or to not be friends with me.
I'm sweating.
We just warmed up all of our stunting.
- It's not sweat, you're just glistening.
- I'm glistening! That's right! - Did you send him the pic? - Yes.
I was willing to do that and was kind of blindsided by his notoriety at that time.
And the coaches wanted to go above and beyond and recognize Jerry, Because you are loved more than you will ever know, Jerry.
Sam found out what was happening like, after a couple of months of him messaging me and asking me for pictures.
I've had times where if I would have, like, left him on "delivered" for a couple of hours, or not responded to him, or acted like a different tone, that wasn't flirty or anything, that he would make me feel bad about myself, and say that I was just using him for being popular and that I didn't actually love him.
Hey, y'all.
We just wrapped up our practice today.
We have ACA in two weeks and we're really excited about it.
Yeah! We're getting in some more reps.
I met him the first time at ACA 2019.
We had been messaging for a while, and I knew he was going to be at ACA, so I was trying my best to just, like, avoid him, because I just was trying to avoid confrontation, and just feeling uncomfortable, and I was also kind of ashamed and embarrassed that I was, like I guess, like, talking to him in that way.
So I didn't want other people, like, seeing him, like, acting weird.
And it was day one, and it was right before I was gonna go to warm-ups.
And Jerry was, like kept on harassing me and it was like, "We should really, like, try to find some way to, like, hang out today or something.
" And I was like, "No.
I don't want to.
" But then he was like, "Just go with me to this bathroom.
" And then he basically I followed him.
And then he started saying, like, "Do He texted me, like, while I was in the bathroom because it was us, and then there was, like, another person in there, and he was like, "Do you want to have sex?" And I was like, "No.
I do not.
" And he was like, "What about oral sex?" And I said, "No.
I'm not comfortable with that either.
" And then the other person left the bathroom, and then Jerry cornered me into the bathroom stall, and basically was just, like, begging me, just continually pleading with me to just, like, have sex with him.
I was basically just like, "No.
I really just do not feel comfortable with it.
" After he came out of the bathroom, we went to warm-ups and he just looked extremely distressed.
I could tell that there was something obviously wrong with him.
He just looked really stressed out and, like, uh, just frantic almost.
And he didn't tell me.
And I didn't find out that Jerry did that until after we competed.
And it was I It was like I was It was, like, haunting almost to hear.
And it just made me so Just like I It just made me so angry, and it made me lose even more faith, I guess, in having a safe community in cheer.
And then Jerry started messaging me too.
It made me feel super uncomfortable, and he would just continually push at that.
And, like, I really didn't know anyone else to talk to about it than just, like, the two of us, and it was just like It almost felt like we were alone.
It started becoming, like, extremely hard for me and Charlie to pay attention in school.
And I would just be feeling these really odd emotions I've never felt before, and feeling so sad or just angry.
I wanted to s-say something about it, but I also felt so ashamed.
And I was scared that if I was gonna tell my mom that she would report it.
And I knew at that time that if I were to report it, that I would basically, like, lose all my cheer friends, because they all, like, love Jerry or are friends with Jerry.
There's not any particular schedule to when I would take my kids' phones up and look at them.
It's something that I just do sort of randomly, but there happened to be a text message that was kind of near the top of Charlie's texts when I took up his phone last spring, that was a message from a text message from Jerry, which was kind of unusual, that said, um, "I'm sorry for what I've done in the past.
" "I don't think it's a good idea that we be friends on Snapchat anymore.
" Um, and so that was what kind of, like "Well, what what is this about?" Um, that's when I started talking to Charlie, in a lot more depth, about his relationship with Jerry.
We love you, Jerry! And that's a wrap for day one.
I'll see y'all tomorrow! - Jerry - Can I give you a hug? I want to give you a hug! So I was like, "Well, can you show me some of these messages that he sent you on Snapchat?" And he explained to me that, of course, these messages were gone because they're only there long enough to be viewed.
I spent a few days just kind of thinking about it and actually doing a little bit of research online about Snapchat, and I found out about a feature called "For My Eyes Only," which is like a password-protected folder.
And so I sat down with Charlie and I said, "Okay.
Let's open up your Snapchat, and I want you to open up your 'For My Eyes Only' folder for me.
" And the first thing that was in that folder was a a video that Jerry had sent him of himself.
Can you describe the video? Um It it was a video of, um, a man who was wearing, um, like, athletic shorts and a red T-shirt, and it was sort of sort of from torso down, and the man was masturbating in the video.
Um, and his face was not visible, but I asked Charlie who it was, and he told me that it was Jerry.
Tell me what that was like for you.
It was horrifying.
It's so cool that everybody knows who you are.
I mean, if you haven't watched Cheer on Netflix yet, you you will see why everyone loves this guy.
This was at the very height of Jerry's popularity.
He had been the Oscars correspondent for Ellen.
Hey, y'all.
Welcome back to my mat talk series.
He was getting more of these endorsement deals.
It's me, Jerry Harris here, And I'm super excited to take a look at my back-to-school picks from Walmart.
His star was really rising.
I can! I will! Watch me! - I'd like to spend the day with you.
- Thank you.
Thank you, again.
I hope we can meet one another when this coronavirus is over.
- Absolutely! - For real.
Absolutely.
I would love that.
Thank you.
Mat-talk me.
Whatever comes to your mind.
You can say whatever.
Push that button! Push! He was doing good things for All Star Cheerleading because he was bringing all this very positive attention to the sport that they really cared about.
Introducing the world's first CP Yay, me! Jerry is not a CPA, an expert who can get your taxes done.
It's my job to give you the confidence So they didn't want him affected adversely for the sake of their sport, and they didn't want to be the ones that tattled on Jerry Harris, because they knew that it would be devastating for them, socially.
- Okay.
Ready? - Five, six, seven, eight.
One, three, five Oh, that's good! I thought we were going to one, Lexa.
I was like this.
As they had more and more distance from this relationship with Jerry, and they were able to see more objectively what had happened to them, and how it had affected them, they became more and more clear about the fact that they had been victims, and they became the ones who were definitely on board with the idea of, um, making sure that something got done about it.
One morning I saw that Jerry was being recognized by President Biden, and that's when I pretty much, just like, lost it, and I went up to my mom, and was like, "I want to do something about this.
" The first step that I took is that I called, um, and I spoke on the phone with Angela Rogers, who is a co-owner of the Cheer Athletics Plano location, The All Star gym that Jerry was affiliated with at that time.
She was very skeptical of what I was telling her.
And so the next day I went ahead and made a report on the USASF website.
What happened was nothing.
And over the course of the next two months, more details about what had happened sort of gradually came out from the boys.
And so after Charlie told me about the incident in the bathroom, I felt like this was definitely a very significant additional detail, and so I made another report to USASF eight or nine weeks later.
I kind of was realizing that the anonymous reporting that we did in the past, nothing had happened, and if we were going to go on the news and do this, and just be anonymous, everyone would be like, "Well, where's the receipts?" Or "Where is the proof?" Or "Where's the evidence?" And I want to show to the world, like, give people a face to, when they think of Jerry Harris, like, what he did.
Now that my sense of confidence in USASF and Safe Sport, and all of that was was dramatically diminished, I went ahead and filed a report on the FBI website on a Friday in early August, and by Monday, um, they had an agent who was in touch with me.
I had high hopes that they would be able to help us, but I also wanted to continue to pursue the information coming out in the press at the same time, in the event that the FBI either chose to, or for whatever reason, was not able to do anything for us.
Our investigation into misconduct in cheerleading really came out of the reporting that my colleagues and I had done into USA Gymnastics and Larry Nassar.
Someone had seen the reporting, that we had done and contacted us and said, "You really should examine what's happening in cheerleading as well.
" And then Tricia and I started our investigation.
In the course of doing a broader investigation into misconduct in cheerleading, we connected with Kristen, the mother of the boys who were accusing Jerry, initially, of misconduct.
She'd reported the allegations to the US All Star Federation, she'd reported them to police, and yet nothing, at that point, had been done.
And so that's when she decided to share her story with us, and also to report the allegations to the FBI.
Our investigation found that the way that the US All Star Federation handled the allegations against Jerry Harris was not an anomaly.
We found multiple examples of people who had been accused or even convicted of misconduct continuing to work in the sport, and all of those cases tied back to gaps in the child protection policies within the sport, and a lot of those gaps still exist today.
Sexual abuse is a pervasive community issue.
It's not exclusive to cheerleading, or gymnastics, or the Catholic Church, or any other institution.
It's really about organizations having really strong child protection policies, following those policies, as well as following the laws that are in place.
It's also about coaches, and gym owners, and parents being diligent about who they allow around children.
There is a dynamic in all-star cheerleading where you can have young athletes and adult athletes on the same team, and that does create an environment where it opens the door for young athletes, you know, underage athletes and adult athletes to create friendships.
It's a it's a tricky dynamic, and I know it's something that many people within the cheer world say should be changed.
- Who's the youngest? Who's the oldest? - Um Almost 30.
Okay.
Well, that makes it more interesting.
- And the youngest? - I'm 13.
- Thirteen.
- Oh my God.
Jerry has become sort of the poster child for this within cheer, because he was very high-profile.
And some people are gonna say it's great that, you know, he was exposed for who he who he is and what he was doing, and some people are gonna say, "Not our Jerry.
We love him.
" It's very easy when we fall in love with people we we feel connected to in some way to have them on a pedestal and to believe they can do no wrong.
And stories like this blow that paradigm up.
I became an advocate and a lawyer representing survivors of sexual abuse because I, myself, was abused at the hands of former Olympic gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar for the better part of 17 years of my life.
He was kind.
He was funny.
He was nurturing.
He was everything that our coach was not.
When he said, "This is called medical treatment and this is what I do," you just take that as being normal.
And at 25 years old, first-year law student, I am sitting in Larry Nassar's office at Michigan State University getting what I thought still was medical treatment, which was anal and vaginal penetration under the guise of medical treatment.
I say to myself often, "If it can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.
" When you're in it, it's very hard sometimes to see red flags, especially when your brain is not fully formed.
Children should be able to engage in the sport of cheer.
They should be able to have heroes in the sport of cheer.
That's not what this is about, and that's not what we're trying to take away.
What we're trying to do is tell the truth, and what we're trying to do is keep children safe.
Because I wanna speak out about the truth, someone from my team at the gym, when he first found out and, like, picked up on what that me and Charlie were speaking out about it, he completely lost his temper, I mean, he threw a fit at the gym and and quit, because he didn't want anything to do with me and Charlie, like, speaking out about this, and he didn't want to be tied to the situation.
After me and Sam spoke out, I mean, pretty much all sense of community was completely ripped away from me and Sam.
It was just terrible.
I mean, pretty much at competitions, me and Sam would walk down the hallway, and everyone would just be staring at us, like, pointing at us and be, like, whispering, and we would just feel so uncomfortable, and so different, and so isolated.
It definitely has brought into focus for us why so few people come forward and speak out about this, because it is extraordinarily difficult.
The boys wanted to communicate through their example that we believe very strongly that that victims of sexual abuse do not need to hide their faces in shame.
I want to be the start of the change in cheer.
Do you have any regrets about coming forward? - No.
- No.
You'd do it again? - Yes.
- Yes.
During a voluntary interview with federal agents, Harris admitted to exchanging explicit photos with several minors and having sex with a 15-year-old.
And he faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years if convicted.
According to a USA Today report, nearly 180 people in the cheerleading community who have faced charges of sexual misconduct with minors have not been banned from the sport's two governing bodies, leaving us to wonder how many more victims are out there.
Has Jerry ever ever told you anything that like, from his childhood that may have triggered something like that or any of his actions like that? No.
I'm telling you, when I when me and Jerry first met, like, it was just kind of like a connection that went like this.
It was like, we just talked the same, laughed the same, yelled the same, liked the same things.
Stuff like that.
Our relationship was very much cheer.
Teams, Bad Girls Club, and, like, we never really talked about, like, deep conversations or anything like that.
I had so many questions, but I couldn't ask him those questions Mm-hmm.
because by the time we found out, he was, like, already Yeah.
gone.
And it just blows my mind, like, I didn't notice or see anything, and, like And it's not like you look for that You don't look for that stuff in your best friend.
Yeah.
That's what I'm saying.
Like, it really blindsided me, like, big.
I think I'm good on this conversation for a sec.
All right? There was a handful of us who were tight with Jerry.
Like, we were ride-or-dies to him, and it just Everyone just felt lost.
Everyone kept You can tell, everyone kept asking each other the same questions, like, "Why couldn't I know?" Or, you know, "Why didn't I know?" and, "I could have helped him, and this could have been better.
" And, like, "He could be here right now, and we could be kiki'ing it up," and, like, nothing.
He admitted to FBI agents that he was involved with 10 to 15 boys, and as recently as this summer, the court documents show that Harris was allegedly paying these boys for sexual images and also sexual videos.
It just didn't seem real.
It just it just felt like you were in a dream.
The first thing you would think is like, "Jerry? No.
There's no way.
" And then you just read the articles more, or whatever the headline said, or whatever Twitter were saying, 'cause you couldn't go on Twitter without seeing his name, and you would want to deny it all, but then you realize you're awake in the real world.
After Jerry's arrest, he had a bail hearing where his attorney argued that he should be released pending trial, and the attorney proposed a plan under which Jerry would be under house arrest, and he would be supervised by a group of mothers who he met through the cheerleading world.
Prosecutors strongly objected to that plan.
They said that Jerry is a serial child predator who would harm others or could harm others if he was released.
And as evidence for that, they said that Jerry had actually, at one point, ditched his cell phone because he had heard that he might be under investigation, but they said that he then proceeded to get a new phone and continue to use it to contact minors.
So the judge heard both of those sides of the argument and decided that Jerry should remain incarcerated pending trial.
And that's where he is today.
Well, the judge felt it was important to keep Jerry Harris held, uh, in jail without bond until trial, because she says he is a danger to the community.
I would have snatched him up if I ever would have known about any of this stuff.
I feel it would have been worse than him going to jail.
I don't care how famous you are, how much money you got, how much people love you.
That don't give you the right to do stuff like this.
Especially when one of your best friends you know went through something like that.
I don't agree with what he was accused of or condone it at all, and it is very unfortunate, and it breaks my heart, but it's literally like your family.
How are you gonna just hate your family? So I feel like people expect me to be like, "Well, you should hate him and you should never speak to him again," but the thing is, I can't.
Like, I cannot and I won't.
I I can't turn my back on him because he was there for me when I needed it.
How did this all affect Monica? Honestly, I don't know.
I have no idea.
Like, yeah, we seen her on the phone.
She was crying with us, but I don't know.
Yes, it probably broke her heart, just like it broke our heart.
Yes, she was probably shocked, and stunned, and didn't know what to say just like us.
But, honestly, I have no idea, because she wasn't here with us.
I went home after the show and pretty much cried myself to sleep.
I was really struggling mentally because I loved Jerry like my own child, but I have all these emotions that are just fighting each other.
And then I tested positive for COVID.
I felt like I couldn't move.
Like, my body felt so weak that I felt like I couldn't walk.
I was actually really quarantined to, like, by myself because I was sick.
Dealing with all the negative social media on top of that, It's hard.
It's very hard.
Do you sympathize with somebody like Monica? I don't.
I have no sympathy for her, because the right thing to do as an adult living in this country, in this world, when you hear that someone that you know intimately has been charged with sexually abusing children, is to come out and to make a statement, and to say, "I stand with those children.
" Not, "I stand with survivors of sexual abuse," which I don't even think she said that, but, "I stand with these children and this never should have happened to them.
" "And if there was anything that I did wrong or that I should have picked up on, I'm going to lose sleep over that for the rest of my life.
" He wrote me a letter, and, um, it was hard to read.
Um, I can't even, like, process it right now because I I'm battling the my head's battling the "he did wrong" versus "this person I know," you know what I mean? And I can't wrap my head around where what I need to even think and how I should feel, which is why I haven't written him back.
Because I don't know what I would say.
Like, I wanna be supportive, yet I'm so disappointed, yet Uh, you know what I mean? I don't know what to say.
And his letter was so optimistic.
He said Like, there was not one negative thing in this letter.
He said he hopes to one day be a motivational speaker.
You know, there are people who are great motivational speakers who did horrible things and they came full circle, and now they're great motivational speakers.
Maybe he sees himself as that.
I don't know.
I I don't know.
I just was really caught off guard at the hope he had for the future.
You know? Because, from our perspective, it seems hopeless.
Yes.
Yes.
And it and it's sad and it makes me tear up every time I think about it.
If I didn't cheer I would have probably fell to the dark side.
I would probably be somewhere on a street right now.
I would probably be in and out of jail.
I would probably be upset at the world, and I would be hurting others because I would be hurt myself.
I would not be where I am today without cheer.
How do you move forward? I keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Every single day.
Don't have a choice.