14 DAY TRIAL // One of the biggest scandals in the US of the late ‘90s was that involving Seattle teacher Mary Kay Letourneau, who seduced a 12-year-old boy who was her student in 6th grade, Vili Fualaau, embarked on a relationship with him, and got pregnant by him twice before she was sentenced to 7 and a half years in jail.
For the first time since 1997, when the story broke, Mary Kay and Vili, now married and getting ready for their 10th wedding anniversary, have done a joint interview. It aired last night, on Barbara Walters’ ABC 20/20 segment. A preview for it, in case you missed it, is available in the video below.
Mary Kay and Vili put up united front, defend affair for the cameras
Mary Kay has spoken to Walters before, in 2004, when she was fresh out of jail after serving time for being found guilty of child rape. Shortly afterwards, when Vili turned 21, they were married and are now getting ready to celebrate a milestone in their marriage.
They have 2 teenage daughters, who are actually older now than their father was when they were conceived. Mary Kay and Vili told Walters that they never had “the talk” with them because, somehow, they knew early on of the scandal because news about it was everywhere. The girls don’t think that it was that big a deal.
Speaking of the news, Mary Kay told Walters that the story of the affair that got out is not their story, implying that the scandal was made to look bigger than it was.
Somehow, she tries to reason away the fact that she “fell in love” with a 12-year-old boy and slept with him when he was 13, and that, at the time, he was barely older than her own son.
Walters seems to agree with her, saying in the interview below, that Mary Kay and Vili are still together, which should account for something, as if that excused her past behavior.
Mary Kay wants sex offender status lifted
On the topic of past behavior, Mary Kay believes she’s suffered enough for the mere act of “falling in love.” She tells Walters that she’s thinking of going back to teaching and that, in order to do that, she has to have the sex offender status on her lifted.
“Recently I said, ‘It's been 10 years, why don't I lift that?’ There's a process, there's a form, you take it to court and then they grant it if it looks like it should be granted,” she says.
Vili, on the other hand, opens up about his career as a DJ and the dark phase in his life when he struggled with depression and addiction because no one “understood” what he was going through.
He felt betrayed by the system and his family because he was made into a victim, and as such, was only given the option of not seeing Mary Kay again. The problem was that he did want to see her.
As per his own admission, Vili also struggled with adjusting to his new life after Mary Kay was sent to prison because, suddenly, here he was, a 14-year-old boy who was the father of 2 infant daughters.