Mary Kay Letourneau, a teacher, served two jail terms as a result of her unlawful relationship with Vili Fualaau, which surprisingly led to a longer-than-10-year marriage.
When Fualaau was in sixth grade in 1996, Letourneau, then 34, was her teacher. The two began having sex in July of that year, making Letourneau a child rapist because Fualaau was only 12 at the time.
Since there aren’t many female pedophiles, the news of Letourneau’s arrest in 1997 shocked not only Washington, where it occurred, but the entire country.
What famous teacher had a relationship with a student?
Letourneau reflected on that period in a 2015 interview with Barbara Walters, telling the reporter, “The incident took place after midnight and wasn’t ended by a kiss.
I anticipated it would, but it didn’t.” She continues by saying how much she loved Fualaau and how she sometimes wondered, “Why can’t it just be a kiss?”
It was a significant event in Fualaau’s life as well, which was made worse by the fact that Letourneau was imprisoned and prohibited from seeing Fualaau. In addition, he had no one to turn to as he raised their two young kids.
He said to Walters: “I don’t think I have the appropriate assistance or backing. From everyone, including my family. Since we were all 14 and 15, my pals couldn’t assist me because they didn’t understand what it was like to be parents.”
