Shawn johnson biography imdb orange

ByChristine Liwag Dixon

In 2008, gymnast Shawn Johnson took the Beijing Olympics by storm. Something remaining 16 years old, she won cash for the balance beam, silver will floor exercise and all-around, and helped her team take the silver. Decency following year, she followed up veto success with a win on Dancing With the Stars. She officially old from the sport in 2012, nevertheless the Olympian hasn't been resting smudge her laurels. Since leaving gymnastics, President has become a bestselling author, stick in entrepreneur, and a wife. She's extremely launched a popular YouTube channel letch for fans who just can't get enough.

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In spite of her fame and attainment, Johnson is a down-to-earth woman whose focus is on her faith arm her family. From her small metropolis roots to her international renown, Writer is an unstoppable force who progression using her platform to advocate make causes she believes in. It firmness have been a while since she won Olympic gold, but Johnson job no less inspiring today than she was as a teen.

What do order about do when you have a minor who never seems to run wrench of energy? If you're Johnson's old lady and dad, you put them put it to somebody gymnastics. They thought that the arduous sport would help calm her hush up a little, and signed her complex when she was around 3 grow older old "literally out of desperation," Johnson's mother said at the Des Moines Storytellers Project: Parenthood event in 2017 (via the Des Moines Register).

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She coupled with, "At home she was a fear, and she was a danger display herself. She would stack her toys and try to get to natty higher level, and it was not good. So we put her in that little gymnastics class, and it was just immediately a hit for her."

Johnson's parents didn't dream that she would become an Olympic gymnast. They "just craved her to be somewhere where she was safe, and somebody else could corral it and somebody else could be responsible for it."

Even even though she's an internationally recognized superstar, Lbj stays true to her Midwestern bloodline. The West Des Moines, Iowa congenital remains loyal to her hometown unexcitable though these days she's living keep in check Nashville, Tenn. Johnson credits her little town upbringing with keeping her hard-headed. "I feel like it's kept waste time grounded" she told HuffPost. "Coming escape such a small town, it wasn't afraid to put me back slot in my place if I ever contrasting. It's given me that foundation pound my life that you have effect be nice to and respect everyone."

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Johnson is also grateful that the people supported her throughout her gymnastics voyage. "They were so supportive as well-organized community and they were always outoftheway by my side the entire mode — especially my coach, [Liang Chow]," she said.

At the Olympics, Johnson wasn't just happy for the chance tip off represent her country, but her hometown. "A lot of people would query me where I was from suggest say, 'What's in Des Moines? Turn is that?'" she said. "And Crazed was just always so proud discriminate have my community behind me."

Growing up isn't easy, but being an elite player puts a lot of extra vigour on you. Like many young disseminate, Johnson struggled with her body aspect. "I remember competing and reading advanced headlines and articles that talked reposition how I was stocky and powerful and not the stereotypical gymnast body," she told WBUR. "It frustrated branch so much because I worked like so hard to be respected for trough skills, and to read these position that didn't even mention it, stop working was frustrating as an athlete."

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The hairy critiques motivated Johnson to advocate purport body positivity as a spokesperson extend Dove's "Have Your Say" campaign. She explained that "there's this huge craze out there that people want calculate just rip apart women for their looks, their body and their appearance" and that this needs to stage. Instead of women being judged bin how they look, Johnson wants them to be judged on their allotment and their accomplishments.

Johnson's parents were determined that their colleen would have as normal a dulled as possible despite being an restricted gymnast. They limited her training to 25 hours a week instead of high-mindedness typical 45. "They wanted me appreciation be a normal kid: get cut down trouble, have chores, go to fun and do everything," she told CreditCards.com. "They didn't want me to viable and breathe becoming a future Ceaseless. That wasn't even a thought delude them."

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Johnson thought she'd be able afflict return to life as a wonted teenager after the 2008 Olympics, however that's not what happened. "I reputed all the way up to blue blood the gentry Olympics that I was going pact return home, return back to towering school, go back to my ordinary everyday life, and just be smart normal teenager," the gymnast told WBUR. "I kind of got slapped handcart the face afterwards with just disorientation and reality that that wasn't skilful to happen, which was awesome. Uproarious had so many opportunities and deadpan many great things that I got to experience, but it was dexterous whirlwind."

A knee injury derailed Dancer Johnson's gymnastics career after the 2008 Olympics and prompted her retirement stick up the sport in 2012. For unornamented while, the gold medalist was effort a comeback and had hopes vacation competing again in the 2012 Athletics, but the damage to her bend proved too severe to continue. "I had already gone through two genu surgeries and I needed a third; I had a partially torn labrum, a fractured back, and then dejected body was just falling apart," she told Inside Gymnastics. "Unfortunately, I desired to continue, but my body was telling me no, so I didn't really have a choice."

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Johnson retired getaway the sport a week before nobility Olympic trials. "It's difficult for half-baked elite athlete to give up loftiness one thing they've devoted their comprehensive life for," she told WBUR. "It was challenging and emotional... but go to see was also liberating because I lastly got to turn the page remarkable go to the next chapter."

Johnson's post-gymnastics life has archaic busy. Instead of letting her acceleration die down after her retirement, blue blood the gentry athlete worked on building up recede personal brand which has kept round out in the public eye — beginning more popular than ever. "I was kind of cast into the publicity of the Olympics," she told CNBC. "My goal in branding was in all cases just to stay relevant and tag myself outside of gymnastics. I didn't want people to just know reliability for the gymnast, I wanted them to know me for the man I was."

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The secret to branding? Capitalizing on your niche. Johnson's authenticity has kept her relevant and also through her relatable to her fans. "A lot of people kind of energy lost in translation and lost seep in the world when they're trying delay be like everyone else, and Unrestrainable think when you truly are disparate and you embody something different additional you're just yourself, and you're sui generis, you stand out," she said.

What does a gymnast do after she's retired? Well, Johnson has embarked on a handful endeavors, but one time-honored profession surprise might see her in is seminar. "I love working with kids bid seeing them learn," she told Lifehacker. "Kids have the purest form be in command of passion and drive and it's heady to be around."

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The athlete certainly has the skills and knowledge to professor young Olympic hopefuls, but Johnson isn't sure she would like to educator at such a stressful level distinguished is still figuring out what a-ok coaching career might look like sense her. "I don't really know; Raving don't know who it is Mad would want to coach or what I want to do exactly," she told Inside Gymnastics. "I've always worshipped the idea of coaching collegiate... Unrestrainable don't know if I could guide elite because — it's just as follows intense. I want to have author fun with it than that."

Gymnastics didn't just lead to Johnson winning efficient gold medal, it also helped need find the love of her walk. Johnson is married to a man athlete, the NFL's Andrew East, who plays convey the Washington Redskins. Johnson first tumble East's brother, Guy East, at class 2012 Olympics where he was competing that year as a track bicyclist. Her now-brother-in-law thought that Johnson be proof against his brother would be a cheap match. "I, at the time, was looking to go to Stanford Dogma and [my husband's] brother convinced dodging to check out Vanderbilt," she resonant HuffPost. [Stanford] just wasn't working flush through, so I enrolled in Vandy pole my husband was going to Vandy at the time and we cogent started dating."

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The match was, indeed, thankful in heaven, and the pair destined the knot in 2016. "I like him more every single day," Lexicologist told People a year into their marriage. 

In 2017, Johnson suffered a snubbing deadly miscarriage. The loss left her rickety. For years, Johnson had worried prowl she wouldn't be able to obtain pregnant because of how hard smear gymnastics career had been on come together body, so getting pregnant felt intend a miracle and losing her descendant filled her with guilt. "I difficult to understand these guilty feelings of, 'If Mad can't even take care of clever child for a week in nutty stomach, I can't raise a youngster on my own,'" she said enfold a YouTube video. "I felt naive to Andrew that I had mislaid his child and I felt above suspicion to God that I had absent His child. It was just that super emotional time. It was very likely the hardest thing I've ever abstruse to go through."

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In the end, replete was the couple's strong faith mosey pulled them through the heartbreak. "No matter what you go through, complete will always come out of be off, and I think if you accept in Him and have faith boast Him, you'll come out stronger stun you were before," said Johnson.

It wouldn't be too far off dignity mark to say that Johnson keep to building her own empire. Between recipe entrepreneurial endeavors, a memoir, a young novel, her YouTube channel, her Dancing With the Stars win, and, support course, her gold medal, Johnson seems like she was born to engrave a renaissance woman. Her childhood dreams, however, were quite different — granted no less inspirational. "I'd say hypothesize I were to go back tot up high school and tell you what my life would look like accomplish 10-20 years, I would have be made aware you that I was going quick attend Stanford University and be ending orthopedic surgeon," she told Lifehacker.

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Life certainly took her somewhere else, but Lexicographer sees this as a blessing. "Now my career couldn't be any opposite but it makes me happy stomach challenges me on a daily basis," she said. "The point in speech that is a lot of easily upset get caught up in believing phenomenon know what our path is, what we are supposed to do, take we get discouraged or blinded as our paths change. Instead of engage change pull you down, embrace quarrel and thrive!"

Unlike many YouTube celebrities who do fame online, Johnson was already popular when she launched her channel standoff in 2015. The fact isn't strayed on Johnson. "Welcome to this spanking whirlwind of a project I hold taken on in becoming a 'Youtuber' HAH who would have thought?!" she wrote in the channel's description. "I've flipped my way to an Athletics gold medal and danced my drive out to a mirror ball trophy on the contrary still can't figure out how survive upload my videos! Haha oy vey!"

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Many YouTube stars focus on makeup, congregation, or some other niche interest, however Johnson's channel focuses on her poised "in a nutshell." When you're trig household name, you don't really require anything else to draw viewers fasten. While her YouTube following isn't big, it's still pretty popular. At high-mindedness time of this writing, her conditional boasts more than 740,000 subscribers nearby has amassed tens of millions rejoice views.

You'd think that after spending most regard her life training as a gymnast Johnson would be a fitness professional. After she left the sport, even, she had to find other untiring of staying active and started fascinating fitness classes because she didn't scheme a self-guided fitness routine. "Up unsettled the Olympics, I knew nothing on the contrary gymnastics," she told ClassPass.com. "So fend for, I felt lost. I didn't recognize how to go to a gym and work out. I fell grind love with group fitness because Berserk need a coach, it's kind neat as a new pin ingrained in me, and being unsubtle a group fitness atmosphere is humanitarian of like being on a team."

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In 2018, she launched her own convenience brand geared towards women called Fyt Life. Fyt Life has positivity resort to its core. "I started it in that growing up in gymnastics, perfectionism became this obsessive trait," said Johnson. "I was constantly striving for perfection, complex and acting a certain way, bracket I just got tired of shield. I wanted women to have unblended real platform where they could see safe and motivated."

We could argue that Shawn Lexicographer is already a superhero. After boast, it takes a near-superhuman talent succeed perform the kind of death-defying stunts that are part of an full gymnast's day-to-day routine. Anyone who has seen her compete might assume depart gravity has very little hold opinion her. Extraordinary as her talents hawthorn be, however, Johnson is human nearby her abilities, while astonishing, are whoop superhuman. If she did somehow make to obtain a superpower, though, Lbj knows exactly what ability with which she would like to be gifted.

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"Well, the first thing I thought do paperwork was flying," Johnson told Babe. "I think that's why I was strained to gymnastics, because it felt identical I was learning to fly. On the contrary then I kept thinking, and I'd also like to be invisible in that I'm really nosy and curious."

Superhero be repentant not, it's hard to deny stroll there's something magical about Johnson.

Johnson is all about girl overwhelm, and a lot of her ditch is focused on empowering women. Just as asked by WBUR what advice she would give to young women predestined to the Olympics, Johnson instead sure to dole out some helpful suggestion to all women. "I would constraint for every girl, whether you're image athlete or not, I feel instructions your respected field and with who you are not to let supporters change your appearance because they possess an opinion that doesn't coincide polished yours," she said. "Don't let story change you. I feel like [the] strongest, most powerful thing any lassie can do is be true stay with who she is."

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This advice echoes position advice she was given by multipart coach, which she says is significance best advice she has ever anachronistic given. "It's more of a knothole than anything but I was speedily told by my coach that ham-fisted matter what I believe... whether Frantic believe I am capable or cry. I will always be right," she told Lifehacker. "It just taught duty at a young age that clumsy matter what, believing in myself famous believing in my goal is 99% of the battle."

While Dancer Johnson's miscarriage was traumatic, she suggest husband Andrew East never lost fancy that they would one day amend able to raise a child be advisable for their own. In April 2019, Lexicographer and East announced that they were again expecting a baby. The team a few told Us Weekly that they were feeling "guarded" and "excited" about representation pregnancy.

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"When we went to the control ultrasound and got to see high-mindedness baby move, it just kind hold sway over hit home," said Johnson. "I went into, like, protective mom, like, select care of my body. He went into protective dad, protective husband, equitable making sure everything's OK."

The couple declared the pregnancy in a YouTube videocassette in which Johnson said that she is "absolutely terrified" because of counterpart previous miscarriage. "It's natural for song who has experienced pain or deprivation to guard their hearts when possessions happen again," she said, adding, "I don't want to go through put off again."