Erin Andrews Returns to the Sidelines
The ESPN reporter tells Oprah that working again will help "heal the wounds."
Sept. 3, 2009 -- ESPN reporter Erin Andrews described her off-season as a "nightmare" after a grainy peeping tom video showing her naked in a hotel room surfaced on the Internet.
Today Andrews returns to television or a new season on the sidelines of college football and hopes to put the past behind her.
In an interview scheduled to air Sept. 11, Andrews first broke her silence to Oprah Winfrey about the ordeal and said that interview would be the first and last time she would address this issue.
"I'm excited to get back to work. I feel like it's really going to help me heal the wounds," Andrews told Winfrey.
Andrews was the victim of a Peeping Tom who on two occasions through a hole in the wall of her hotel room videotaped her without her knowledge while she was changing clothes and posted the tape on the Internet in July.
"I opened up the computer and could feel my heart pounding," Andrews, 31, told Winfrey about the first time she saw the video.
In July Andrews called 911 after paparazzi camped outside her home in a gated community in Atlanta.
"My last name is Andrews. I'm all over the news right now," she told the 911 operator. "I'm the girl that was videotaped without her knowing, without her clothes on in the hotel. …They're looking at me through my window," Andrews said.
When the operator asked if she was OK, Andrews responded, "I did nothing wrong, and I'm being treated like ... Britney Spears."
ESPN's Erin Andrews Speaks Out
"I just felt like I was continuing to be victimized," Andrews told Winfrey about the media coverage.
Some in the public have speculated that perhaps the Peeping Tom was a person who knew Andrews or covered sports, but Andrews' representative says it's still not known who was responsible for the crime.
This month Andrews appears in GQ magazine, photographed in a football uniform and pads covered in mud. The photos were taken before news of the Internet video surfaced.
She told the magazine that she is "enamored" with college football.
"I grew up in the South. It's a religion," Andrews said.
Tonight Andrews returns to the sidelines for a football season she hopes will help her move on from an off-season she would rather forget.
ESPN and ABC News are both owned by the Walt Disney Company.