Netflix’s ‘Cheer’ Made Monica Aldama a Star. Her Life Has Been Hell Ever Since.

with the onset of reality TV, and that is how they were

The more successful she was, the more she had to face men’s rage, and this routinely brought to her doorstep withering moments of public excoriation and every form of low personal attack.

The floodgates had opened. We didn’t know, as we sat in the courtroom with tears streaming down our faces, that the world had begun to take notice. But as each woman stood to face her abuser and speak the truth, the world was coming face-to-face with the damage of sexual assault in a way it never had before. Jane Doe had a name. She had a story. Sh

She was the company’s most powerful marketing tool. Her story was intoxicating. Everyone wanted to believe in it, including the numerous young girls who were sending her letters and emails. It wasn’t a cynical calculus on his part: Patrick was one of her biggest believers. He had no knowledge of the shenanigans in the lab and didn’t pretend to unde

Little girls, she argued, were worth nothing more than the medals they could win, so they were starved, abused, and used to keep their bodies and skills perfect—like “pretty boxes.”

She was still hoping to break out as a star herself, so she began looking to past cultural icons for inspiration.