Mary Lou Retton Gives a Health Update After Nearly Dying From Pneumonia Last Year: 'I'll Never Be the Same' (Exclusive)

The former Olympic champ opens up about how she's doing after nearly dying last year, says 'God wasn't ready for me'

Mary Lou Retton knows how lucky she is to be alive.

"Girl, I should be dead," she tells PEOPLE in a new interview, about her experience with a rare form of pneumonia that left her intubated in the ICU in 2023. She was so sick that at one point the doctors told her four daughters it didn't seem like she'd pull through.

"The doctors told them to come to say their goodbyes,” says Retton, who spent a month in the hospital.

Related: Mary Lou Retton's 4 Children: All About Shayla, McKenna, Skyla and Emma

“They prayed over me, and McKenna said, ‘Mommy, it’s OK, you can go.’ I didn’t have much of a relationship with my mother, but I can’t imagine what that was like, to watch their mom on her deathbed.”

Related: Mary Lou Retton Opens Up About Her 'Serious' Health Battle in the ICU: 'I'm So Blessed to Be Here'

Retton feels she pulled through because “God wasn’t ready for me yet," but she’s endured a long ongoing recovery, and says she'll "never be the same."

“It’s been really hard,” she admits, noting that she still relies on daily oxygen. “My lungs are so scarred. It will be a lifetime of recovery. My physicality was the only thing I had and it was taken away from me. It’s embarrassing.”

The new normal is especially difficult to process as the Paris Olympics kick off later this month. 40 years ago this August, Retton herself became famous for winning gold in the gymnastics all-around, which no American female had ever won before. After she scored a perfect 10 in her floor routine, her last event was the vault.

“My coach Bela Karolyi looked at me and said, ‘Mary Lou, you need to give a 10. He’d never said that before,’” she says. “I was like, ‘You’re putting pressure on me? I’ll show you!’” She delivered.

“You can see on the video that I was smiling before my feet touched the floor,” she says, remembering how she stuck the landing. “The Pauley Pavilion was shaking with all the cheering,” she says. “They were all shouting, ‘Ten! Ten! Ten!’”

History was made, and a star was born. Retton became a household name—and the first female to grace a Wheaties cereal box. Two years later, she stunned the world again: this time by walking away from her sport altogether.

“I had gone above and beyond all I’d ever wanted to do,” she says, “which was to win something at the Olympics. And then I went and won the whole thing.”

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