14 DAY TRIAL // Mary Kay Letourneau Fualaau is celebrating her 10th wedding anniversary with the man whom she embarked on a relationship with when he was only 13 years old. Letourneau is the infamous Seattle teacher accused of seducing one of her 6th grade pupils, Vili Fualaau, with whom she got pregnant twice before being sent to jail.
They were married shortly after she was released from prison and are looking forward to their 10th wedding anniversary, which they want to celebrate with a joint interview with Barbara Walters. It is their first interview together since the 1997 scandal.
ABC special airs this Friday
The network is yet to release footage from the interview, but we do have this first photo (above). The couple’s teenage daughters will also make appearances, ABC says in a statement.
Mary Kay tells Walters that she wants to go back to teaching, and opens up on her and Vili’s “secrets” for keeping their marriage alive despite the huge age-gap.
He, on the other hand, talks about his struggles with alcoholism and how he feels like the system failed him as a minor.
The full interview will be included on the 20/20 segment on ABC, airing this Friday, April 10, at 10 pm ET.
A scandalous story
Mary Kay first met Vili when he was in 2nd grade, while she was married to her first husband, the father of her 4 children. They met again in the 6th grade, when Vili was 12 and she was already separated from her husband, though still sharing the same house because of financial reasons.
Vili was only one year and a half older than her eldest child. Mary Kay was 34.
She told Walters in 2004, upon her release from jail after serving a 7 and a half year sentence, that the relationship didn’t start right away, and that it was the boy who came on to her by confessing that he loved her. She didn’t want to acknowledge it at the time to herself, but she too felt a “deep love” for him.
She had been tutoring him for some time, which meant they were spending more time together than they would have if she’d only see him in class. By the time she was arrested, she was pregnant with their first child. The second one was conceived when she was awaiting trial.
She was released in August 2004 and renewed contact with Vili immediately. He asked the court for a no-contact order in her name to be overturned, and one year later, they were married.
Their two daughters are now older than Vili was when he conceived them.
Embedded below is Mary Kay’s sit-down with Barbara from 2004.