Sports reporter breaks down in court after suggestion stalker's nude video advanced her career
US sports reporter Erin Andrews has broken down on the witness stand after a lawyer suggested a nude video shot through a hotel peephole and distributed by a stalker was advantageous to her career.
Ms Andrews is suing her stalker, and the owner and operator of the Marriott at Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee, for $US75 million ($A105.03 million).
Defence lawyer for the hotel Marc Dedman asked about whether her earnings increased after the video spread.
US sports reporter Erin Andrews has broken down on the witness stand after a lawyer suggested a nude video shot through a hotel peephole and distributed by a stalker was advantageous to her career. Photo: AP
"You got a second contract with ESPN, right? And it was a better contract than you had the first time, right?" Dedman asked.
"After that you got a contract with Fox Sports right? And that was a better contract than you had…right?"
Ms Andrews sobbed in response, recalling how some in the media speculated that she was doing it to attract attention to herself before the FBI made an arrest.
"Probably for three months, everybody thought it was a publicity stunt," she said, choking up on the stand. "That ripped me apart."
Ms Andrews said she was terrified that the videos would go viral and she would never be able to get them off the internet after a friend told her about them in July 2009.
"I just kept saying, 'We gotta get it down. We gotta get it down.' And we can't get it down! And we're never going to get it off," she testified.
Erin Andrews. Photo: Reuters
She said the stalking left her fearful, anxious and depressed.
Jurors heard from the stalker earlier in the day during recorded depositions played in court.
In the videos played before the jury, Michael David Barrett testified that he took the secret nude videos of Ms Andrews so he could make money.
Barrett said the only reason he picked Ms Andrews was because she was popular and he saw that she was trending on Yahoo.
He posted the recordings online after celebrity gossip website TMZ refused to buy the footage.
Since the video went viral, Andrews has moved from ESPN to Fox Sports. Photo: AP
Barrett spent more than 30 months in federal prison after he admitted to renting hotel rooms next to Ms Andrews three times and shooting nude videos of her in Nashville, Tennessee, and Columbus, Ohio, and posting them on the internet.
He said he was able to get the videos of her by manipulating the hotel door peephole in such a way that he could pull the peephole out and use his mobile phone to shoot videos of her.
Ms Andrews. Photo: AP
He was an executive with a Chicago-area insurance company and travelled extensively in his former job. He admitted that he had also taken nude videos of about 10 other women in hotels and posted the footage online.
Jurors are going to have to decide if the hotel companies were negligent in any way.
