The Stunning Transformation Of Erin Andrews

Erin Andrews is one of the most recognizable faces in all of sports journalism. She has graced every court, gym, and end zone that there is, and she has consistently nailed interviews with some of the biggest sports legends out there. All the while, she makes it look easy, holding her own in a field that's seriously dominated by men, both on the field and off.

But Andrews isn't impervious to the steady flow of testosterone she wades through on a daily basis, and she has been open about how it has impacted her life. Nevertheless, she's loved sports since she was a child, so no one and nothing can keep her from doing what she loves.

Have you ever wondered what Andrews was like when she's not out on the court with a mic in her hand? How has she grown and changed over the years, and what are her plans for the future? And how did adversity change her in her most troubling times? This is the stunning transformation of Erin Andrews.

Born to a journalist father and a teacher mother, Erin Andrews and her family relocated from Maine to the Tampa Bay area, where her father had landed a new job, when she was a young girl. He's well known in the area because of his work as an investigative reporter for local television station WFLA News Channel 8 and is perhaps even more well known than his famous daughter. "My dad is recognized here more than I am," Andrews told Tampa Magazine. 

However, that doesn't mean that Andrews isn't recognized when she returns to her old stomping grounds at all — far from it. That's because sports are very popular in the region, almost to the point that it's like a religion, says Andrews. "I can't go inside a college sports bar," she continued. "It gets pretty obscene."

But long before she was a pillar of sports journalism, Andrews was just a young girl with big dreams living in Florida with her family.

It would seem that Erin Andrews was destined to fall in love with sports from the very beginning, as they were practically woven into her DNA. "I grew up a daddy's girl," she recalled in an interview with Elle. "My dad loved sports, and I used to sit on the couch with him and learn about his favorite teams." That included not just learning everything she could about the players, but also the coaches, past and present games, and the various team traditions. Our girl was hooked out of the gate! 

Interestingly enough, Andrews didn't rush out to join a little league team, or try out for the swim team at school. "I never played sports," she continued. "I was always a spectator, but it was something I really loved doing." After a while, she also became a huge fan of the sports broadcasters she would see on television, including the female journalists. Suffice to say, her life's path was becoming very clear.

Believe it or not, but, as Erin Andrews tells it, she wasn't really a big fan of high school, even with her movie star good looks. Since she was something of a tomboy, she felt like she didn't have much in common with her female friends, who had different interests than she did. "All I wanted to do was talk sports," she confessed in an interview on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel (via The Spun). "Friday nights, when all of my girlfriends were at the movie theater with their boyfriends, I was at our friend's house down the street watching the Chicago Bulls." She noted, "I didn't enjoy high school."

Additionally, because Andrews was tall and slender, the students started calling her Manute, after the legendary 7'7" baller Manute Bol. "I would've liked to have been named MJ, or Scottie Pippen or something like that," she continued. "But I got Manute." Well, who's laughing all the way to the bank now?

Fortunately for Erin Andrews and many others, high school doesn't last forever. So once Andrews finished up her senior year, it was time for her to figure out her next step, which was a no-brainer for her. She was off to Gator country at the University of Florida (UF). "I knew I wanted to go into sports broadcasting, and Florida had a great journalism program," she explained to Southern Living.

That wasn't the only reason that Andrews went to that school, as she definitely had an ulterior motive, which naturally had something to do with sports. "Plus, and it may sound silly, I wanted to go to a school with a winning football program," she continued. "I knew ESPN would be covering strong teams and I wanted to see that coverage up close."

Andrews graduated from UF with a bachelor's degree in telecommunications in 2000, according to their website. Seven years later, she was honored with the University of Florida's Outstanding Young Alumni Award. Congrats, Erin!

Have you ever found yourself in the position of being a recent college grad searching for work? If so, you probably know it's not always easy. But luckily enough for Erin Andrews, she was able to land a super exciting job in 2001, less than a year after graduation. She was hired as a rink-side hockey correspondent for the Tampa Bay Lightning.

At the outset, however, things didn't seem so rosy, as the team had just hired a brand new coach. "I mean, he was working with one of the worst teams in the league," Andrews shared in a chat with the Tampa Bay Times. "It had been awful, and he was trying to get them to pay attention and didn't want any distractions."

Fortunately Andrews was able to prove just how good she was, winning the respect of both the coach and the team as a whole. "It could have been just a really rough go for me," she continued. "They were so welcoming and wonderful to me."

Once Erin Andrews learned the ropes of sports reporting for the Tampa Bay Lightning, she felt right at home, as noted by the Tampa Bay Times. Not only was she good at asking the tough questions, but she also got close to the coach of the team, who became a mentor to her. So when Andrews received an offer she couldn't refuse in 2002 — an invitation from Turner Sports to report on hockey and baseball in Atlanta — she found herself in a tough position.

Distraught, Andrews called her parents to solicit their advice. Ever the sage, her father reminded her that reporting on the national level was most definitely a smart next step in her career. So before the hockey season was over, Andrews tearfully tendered her resignation.

After two years with Turner, with no renewed contract in hand, Andrews pitched herself to ESPN. The network eventually ended up offering her a long-term contract after she showed them, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she had what it takes to be great.

In 2008, Erin Andrews would have to go through perhaps the most difficult, traumatizing experience of her life. When she was staying in a hotel, a man filmed her while she was nude and uploaded the video to the internet. Naturally, when she found out about the violation, Andrews was hysterical. "I was freaking out so much that when I called my parents, my dad thought I had been injured in a car accident cause I was just screaming bloody murder on the other end," she revealed in an interview with NBC News.

In that moment, not only was she horrified to learn about what had happened to her but also what the fallout from the incident might be. She shared, "Honestly, the first thing I said was, 'My career was over, I'm done. Nobody's ever going to take me seriously again.'"

In the end, the perpetrator pleaded guilty and served more than two years in jail, according to The New York Times. Andrews won a lawsuit against the perpetrator and "the owner and managing company of the Nashville Marriott where she was filmed," but the emotional scars will always be there. 

Despite the horrific events of 2008, Erin Andrews' career was not over as she had feared — far from it. In fact, just a few years later in 2012, she accepted a new gig over at the Fox network, continuing her ascent in the world of sports journalism. "I think I'm most excited about the new opportunities and a chance to expand my role, and just really challenge myself and get better," she told Shape.

As Andrews tells it, she didn't have any issues with her previous employer, so that wasn't the motivation for her move. "I was very comfortable and very happy with where I was for the last eight years with ESPN," she continued. "But this is a chance for me to just get better." You have to admire her ambition!

That's not all, either, as it was only a couple of years after that that Andrews was given another opportunity: She would co-host the widely popular show Dancing with the Stars, as noted by a tweet. Our girl was diversifying her career!

Erin Andrews has always done her best to be as healthy as possible, as noted by Shape magazine. But despite her best efforts, Andrews was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2016, which hit her completely out of the blue. But rather than take time off to get the treatment she needed, she soldiered through work with a serious poker face. "Being on my feet for about seven hours at a time was very hard, physically," she explained in an interview with InStyle. "But what was even harder was that, because I work with a bunch of men, I didn't want to act like I was sick." Understandably, she didn't want to be perceived as weak or incapable in front of her co-workers, which was, she said, was quite exhausting.

Fortunately Andrews was able to beat the cancer, which she learned when she was backstage with her team at Dancing with the Stars. "The doctor said, 'You're good to go, and I'll see you in six months for a checkup,' and it was a ton of relief," she continued.

Erin Andrews may be obsessed with her work, given that she's incredibly passionate about it, but that doesn't mean she has no time for love. So when her now-husband — former NHL player Jarret Stoll — popped the big question to her at Disneyland in 2016, she was absolutely thrilled. "We went there for Christmas to see the Christmas decorations," she gushed in a chat with Good Morning America, "and we had a lovely dinner there and he did it right there at dinner at Disneyland." She then proceeded to start "bawling like a child." Aw!

In 2017, she and Stoll tied the knot in a beautiful outdoor ceremony in Montana, surrounded by their friends and family, as noted by People magazine. "June 24th was so perfect," she wrote in a post on her Instagram page. "Can we do it again next [weekend]?" Congrats, you two lovebirds!

Erin Andrews has been working in the sports journalism field for decades, usually surrounded by men. That means she also spends a lot of time dining in the company of men, who she says have bigger appetites and therefore eat more. So how is it that Andrews manages to stay in such killer shape while surrounded by steak and appetizers? "I have no choice to basically have it in my mind that I have to work out every day," she shared with Shape. "That is the way I have programmed myself." Whether that's running up stadium stairs, jumping rope for 45 minutes, or attending fitness classes, Andrews makes sure to get exercise in.

That doesn't mean she's wolfing down entire platters of mozzarella sticks or eating all of the cookies on the craft services table, though. "I just try to be really smart with it," she continued. "I don't need to finish my whole meal. But I'm not someone who starves herself, either."

In 2020, in a move that shocked fans of Dancing with the Stars, co-hosts Erin Andrews and Tom Bergeron were both dismissed from their jobs, according to Deadline. Given that Bergeron had been on the show since its inception in 2004 and that Andrews had been there since 2014, it makes sense that folks were surprised to see them go.

Rather than make waves or publicly decry the fact that she'd been let go, Andrews instead was a total class act. "Thank you ABC and the entire Dancing with the Stars family for six memorable seasons," she wrote in a tweet. "Those years wouldn't have been as special without my loving host Tom Bergeron, the talented dancers, and witty judges." She added that she'll always treasure the memories she made on the show, even if she had difficulties walking in high heels. Sounds like Andrews will now learn what happens to your body when you stop wearing high heels.

Over the years, Erin Andrews has become one of the most recognizable sports journalists in the world. On top of that, hosting Dancing with the Stars made her a household name for millions of people. But no matter what Andrews accomplishes, or how famous she becomes, she and her family remain down to earth, and they aren't afraid to be silly together. "You know the four of us are on a text chain and we call each other the Griswolds," she revealed in a chat with Fatherly. "We tell each other everything."

Unlike so many families, who might have big disagreements due to the current political climate, the Andrews clan has no trouble staying close. "We're always reciting movie quotes to each other, sending funny memes to each other and there really isn't a day that we're not checking in on one another," she continued. That is exceedingly wholesome, and we're here for all of it.

When Erin Andrews received her cervical cancer diagnosis back in 2016, she had to very quickly take a moment to evaluate what she wanted in life. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing, either, despite the awful diagnosis. "If anything, it was a huge step for my relationship with my boyfriend at the time," she recalled in an interview with Health. "We hadn't even been discussing marriage. We hadn't discussed babies!" After that, they kind of had to have those conversations.

To that end, though Andrews had frozen her eggs in the past, she and her husband decided to undergo IVF and freeze embryos, so that, if and when they decide to have a child, the option will be on the table. "I'm not young, we don't know when we're gonna have a baby, we don't know if this is going to come back," she continued. We wish you all the best on your journey, Erin!