Shocking bodycam footage shows star Olympic gymnast Mary-Lou Retton berating officers as they arrested her for a DUI – yelling ‘I’m a gold medalist’ as they wrestled handcuffs around her oxygen tank.
The video obtained by Daily Mail shows the 57-year-old incredulous and slurring her words moments after she was arrested in her home state of West Virginia in May.
Retton, wearing flip flops, a yellow t-shirt and burgundy shorts, told officers that she had simply been out to ‘get her nails done’ and appeared shocked that she had been pulled over.
She told officers that they were ‘too old’ to know who she was’, before admonishing them for daring to arrest her because she’s ‘West Virginia’s first daughter’.
Despite being told multiple times to listen, the gold medalist admitted that she couldn’t stand with one leg in the air for nine seconds in the newly released footage.
Retton can be seen rolling her eyes when asked to conduct the tests, before adding: ‘This is ridiculous, I’m a gold medalist.’
Olympic gold medalist Mary Lou Retton’s DUI mugshot has been revealed for the first time since her shocking May arrest – showing the former gymnast with bleary, reddened eyes after being caught with a bottle of wine on the front seat of her Porsche
Tanned Retton can be seen looking disheveled in her mugshots – with puffy eyes, wearing a yellow t-shirt and gold jewelry
One cop quipped that she should be good at the tests, which Retton responded by smiling and saying ‘Yeah! I mean upside down.’
She hurried through the straight-line walk, failed to keep her head still while tracking the officer’s finger and stumbled each time she tried to lift one leg into the air.
After stumbling through her sobriety tests, Retton exclaimed, ‘No, I did not,’ when the officer told her she had failed all three.
With a smirk on her face and her arms crossed as she leaned against a car, she doubled down on her denial saying, ‘come on’ and ‘oh my god’.
Retton even went as far as calling the cops ‘crazy’ after she refused to take a breath test at the side of the road and when the officers informed her that she would be taken into custody on suspicion of DUI, her mouth dropped her, with her saying ‘I’m going to have to go to jail?’
They officers on scene also informed her if she refused the breathalyzer, they’d have to get a warrant to draw her blood, before handcuffing her.
The left profile mugshot Retton took after she was taken into custody for swerving on the road, slurring her words and refusing to take a breathalyzer test
Tan and tiny Retton, 57, was dwarfed by her ex-husband, Shannon Kelley, a former University of Texas quarterback-turned-businessman, at her daughter’s wedding on June 29
Retton was hospitalized in the ICU in 2023 with a rare pneumonia that she said scarred her lungs and forced her to use oxygen tubes to breathe.
Footage from the Fairmont City Police Department shows her oxygen tank had run out at the time of her arrest, but the ex-athlete initially refused medical help when offered.
‘F*** that’, she told officers when offered a different supply of oxygen. ‘Put me in the cell. Y’all are terrible. I nearly died from double pneumonia.
She added: ‘I’ll die here and you guys will live with that. I’m crazy right now I’m so lightheaded.’
When she was offered extra oxygen she declined and said ‘I’ll die in your cell’.
An officer filling out the arrest paperwork said ‘we don’t want that’, but Retton replied twice ‘Yes, you do.’
During the exchange on May 17, she also demanded that officers call a former sheriff, and was incredulous when told that he had retired.
Retton repeatedly stated ‘unbelievable, this is what happens in Fairmont West Virginia. Wow’, during her interactions with police.
She even joked with one ‘this will be good for the book’, before telling a medic ‘I was in psychosis in my car and they thought I was drunk.’
In mug shots also obtained by Daily Mail, Retton looks bleary eyed after she was held.
She appears tanned but looks disheveled with puffy eyes, wearing a yellow t-shirt and gold jewelry.
The oxygen tubes to her nostrils are not visible in the mugshot.
Retton appeared at Marion County Magistrates Court in Fairmont after the arrest, entering a no-contest plea to a non-aggravated DUI charge, receiving a $100 fine – the standard punishment for a first-time offense.
The shocking lead-up to her bleary-eyed mugshots began when highway police pulled her over and found her slurring her words behind the wheel of her Porsche.
Witness Alison Ralston said in a statement that she was driving from Bridgeport to Fairmont and once on the interstate ‘noticed the car in front of me swerve a little’.
‘So, I got around the car and kept driving,’ she said.
Right before the construction near the White Hall exit, the same car almost rear-ended the car beside me, and that’s when I got suspicious.
‘I stayed near the car to see if it was still swerving, and it was,’ she added.
‘We both got off at the Downtown exit and I got behind the car.’
Retton stood with her daughter Emma’s 20-something bridesmaids, who all wore coral pink colored dresses, as she got ready to walk down the aisle
At Emma’s wedding, Retton wore an over-the-shoulder sparkly midnight blue dress paired with a silver bracelet and high heels
Ralston said she stayed behind Retton’s car so she could get the license plate number and car type and then she called the police.
‘I was on the phone with 911 when we both turned left on to Merchant Street. The car pulled into the Auto Zone, and I kept going.
‘The police took over from there.’
Once cops arrived on the scene, they noted she had a ‘screw top container of wine’ on the passenger seat of her car when they approached her.
Court documents obtained by DailyMail.com revealed that the West Virginia native had ‘the odor of alcohol‘ coming from her while sitting in the driver’s seat of her still-running car.
Retton, who wowed at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, winning a gold medal, two silvers and two bronzes, failed all three phases of the standard field sobriety test and refused a roadside preliminary breath test, as well as a secondary chemical test of her blood.
Regardless of her refusal, she was charged in Marion County for ‘driving under influence of alcohol, controlled substances, or drugs,’ according to court records.
She was released after personally posting a $1,500 bond.
It would take a month for Retton to issue an apology, telling People Magazine after her June 10 court hearing: ‘I take full responsibility for my actions,’
‘What happened was completely unacceptable,’ she added through her attorney Edmund Rollo. ‘I make no excuses. To my family, friends and my fans: I have let you down and for that I am deeply sorry.
‘I am determined to learn and grow from this experience and I am committed to making positive changes in my life. I truly appreciate your concern, encouragement and continued support.’
In addition, she asked for ‘privacy as she moves forward with her personal and professional life’.
Retton, who famously won gold at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, was released after personally posting a $1,500 bond
The former gymnast kept a low profile after her brush with police but resurfaced at the Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden on June 29 – six weeks after her arrest –to attend the wedding of her youngest daughter, Emma Kelley, to her college sweetheart.
Retton looked strong and fit in an over-the-shoulder sparkly midnight blue dress as she shepherded 23-year-old Emma’s dozen bridesmaids around on golf carts at the arboretum where they all posed for wedding photos in the 94-degree heat.
Retton and her ex husband Shannon Kelley, who divorced in 2018 after 27 years of marriage, walked down the aisle again together . At 6′ 1′, he towered 16 inches overhis petite ex.
This follows Daily Mail’s report in May that family members in both West Virginia and Texas were concerned about Retton’s arrest and confused about why she left her $550,000 post-divorce home in Boerne, Texas, apparently without telling her relatives, to drive back to her native West Virginia.
Retton was hospitalized in October 2023 with a rare form of pneumonia, which her eldest daughter Shayla Schrepfer shared in an Instagram reel in January 2024
Retton is seen posing with her daughter McKenna Kelley at the 2019 NCAA championships, who sparked backlash in 2023 by announcing they were accepting donations to cover her mother’s medical bills shortly after Retton returned home from the hospital
Retton is originally from Fairmont, West Virginia, and has split her time between the Mountain State and Texas, where she’s been based since 2012.
Retton was hospitalized in the ICU in 2023 with a rare pneumonia that she said scarred her lungs and forced her to use oxygen tubes to breathe.
Her daughter McKenna posted an announcement shortly after her mother came home to recover that the family was accepting donations on Spotfund to help with medical bills after her hospitalization.
McKenna said her mother, who in her heyday had numerous commercial endorsements and was the first female athlete pictured on the Wheaties cereal box, had not been able to afford medical insurance.
About $500,000 was raised in donations, but the family soon drew criticism after refusing to clarify where the donations would be going, while Retton’s claim to not have insurance was also doubted by some.
‘They didn’t deserve that,’ Retton said in May when asked about the backlash her daughters received.
‘They were just trying to take care of me. I don’t care about the naysayers. There are trolls everywhere. It’s what makes us America. Everybody’s got an opinion, but it is what it is.’
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .