'She didn't tell me the father of her child was 12': Mary Kay Letourneau's best friend opens up about case that shocked America
WASHINGTON, US: Mary Kay Letourneau back in the day made headlines for her infamous sexual relationship with a 12-year-old student named Vili Fualaau. The controversial Washington middle school teacher died at the age of 58 from cancer in July 2020. A few new details have emerged in the case that earlier rocked the nation.
Mary Kay Letourneau’s childhood best friend Michelle Lobdell spilled the beans on the former’s relationship with the Samoan-American student that started in the year 1996. Lobdell in an interview with the New York Post shared that she received a call from Letourneau where the latter revealed she was pregnant. Lobdell shared that it was a shocking moment for her. For the unversed, Letourneau in 1997 pleaded guilty to two counts of felony second-degree rape of a child and reached a plea agreement for six months in jail, with three months suspended, and no contact with Fualaau for life among other terms.
READ MORE
Wilmington Area High School teacher held for sex with female student after HUSBAND exposes scandal!
Who is Marka Bodine? Teacher who had sex with student, 13, gets ONLY 60 days in prison
‘She didn’t tell me he was 12’
In an interview with the New York Post, Michelle Lobdell recalled the phone call she got a call from Mary Kay Letourneau saying, “She said, ‘I have some news and this is difficult'" adding, “She said, ‘I’m pregnant and it’s not [Letourneau’s husband] Steve’s.'" Lobdell further shared, “It was a shocking moment. She presented it to me that [the father] was some student she met during a summer school class.”
Michelle Lobdell stated that she thought Letourneau’s lover would be a college-aged man. “She didn’t tell me he was 12,” said Lobdell. Letourneau at the time of her affair was 34 and had four children. Her sexual affair with her sixth-grade student Vili Fualaau raised many eyebrows at the time.
Letourneau was arrested in March 1997 after a relative of her first husband, Steve Letourneau, told the police about her relationship with Fualaau. After her release from jail, Letourneau was caught with Fualaau in a car and she was sentenced to more than seven years in prison for child rape. A new documentary on Letourneau called ‘Mary Kay Letourneau: Notes on a Scandal’ is all set to premiere on ID and stream on Discovery+ on Sunday, August 28.
‘It was never a love story’
Ahead of the premiere of the documentary, Michelle Lobdell in an interview with In Touch Weekly revealed that Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau’s relationship “was never a love story." She dubbed it a “tragic fantasy of a woman who was broken and unloved trying to find the love and fulfillment that she had never had in her life."
Lobdell added, “Not from her parents, not from her family, not from, from anybody and obviously a friendship with another person, me, wasn’t capable of filling that role either.” She added, “People call it a love affair because that’s what Mary Kay wanted them to believe. That’s what Mary Kay wanted to believe. Mary Kay created a story, and I knew she would stick to it to the day she died” concluding, “It doesn’t matter what [happened], if she [hated] his guts, she [would] still claim he [was] the love of her life. She desperately needed the fantasy of this love affair to be true.”
If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.