Shawn Johnson has been rooting for bestie Mallory Ervin since before they even met.
Tasked with judging the 2010 Miss America pageant, the Olympic gymnast found herself pushing hard for the bubbly Miss Kentucky title holder. "I didn't even know you and I wanted you to win," Johnson recalled to her pal in their joint Zoom interview with E! News as they sat side-by-side in the athlete's Nashville-area pad. "I voted you as the winner."
Though the gold medalist and the contest's fourth runner-up—who live just minutes apart—didn't officially connect at the time, "We bumped into each other in Nashville in Michaels," Johnson recalled of the ubiquitous craft store. "And Mallory thought I worked there. And she was like, 'Excuse me Miss, do you sell tassels here?' And I didn't even know her name. I was like, 'Miss Kentucky?!'"
Chimed in Ervin, "And I was like, 'Shawn Johnson?! What are you doing here?'"
A BFF meet-cute for the ages, their bond remains a true work of art more than a decade later. "I'm so grateful that I had a friend like her that was placed into my life," gushed Ervin. "And that it ended up being my closest friend. I mean, Shawn and I talk every single day."
So, of course, Johnson, 30, was cheering from the sidelines as the 36-year-old YouTube star made the terrifying decision to share her entire truth in her book Living Fully: Dare to Step Into Your Most Vibrant Life. Part-memoir, part-self-help guide, the recent release details the years-long stretch that saw the newly crowned Miss Kentucky and three-time Amazing Race alum become increasingly dependent on a combination of Adderall and Ambien.
"Eight years ago, I would have died. I had to go to treatment," Ervin said of the 30-day stint that came at her parents' urging after her weight plummeted to 90 pounds and her blood pressure skyrocketed. "I had an addiction to prescription medication, and I had to remove that from my life."
And though she never imagined walking through that particular chapter of her life, "It was the best thing that ever happened to me," she shared citing how it taught her to truly feel every moment rather than numb out any sort of pain.
"The hardest things I ever went through were the things that gave me the brightest life," Ervin explained of the broader takeaway, a lesson that's helped her navigate the four excruciating miscarriages she experienced before her current pregnancy. "I would not be living the life that I'm living now had I not ended up in a treatment center. I always thought it was something I had to fix to get on with my life; it made my life in so many ways. So, I'm not afraid when I'm on the cusp of more adversity. I'm like, 'Well, here we go. Something good's about to come from this.'"
That's not to say the mom to sons Ford, 3, and Shepherd, 2 (she and husband Kyle Dimeola are expecting another baby this June) wasn't terrified to come clean. "You can't stop the freight train," she noted, describing how she felt ahead of the bestseller's February release. "Once it's about to come out, it's not like you can be like, 'Can you pull it from the shelves? I've changed my mind.'"
Thankfully, Johnson was, as always, in her corner.
"When she told me she was writing a book and actually going to tell her story, I was like, 'Finally!'" Johnson recalled. "Because I read comments on social media of, 'Oh, you have such the perfect life,' and, 'Oh, it's just so easy for you!' And I wanted to smack those people and be like, 'No. If you knew Mallory the way I know Mallory, she has worked for this.'"
And despite Ervin's most fervent fears, "I actually haven't had one single negative response," she revealed, detailing how people have reached out sharing their own stories of struggle. Echoed Johnson, "I think our entire world wants to assume the worst in people and the worst is usually that they think everything is just easy and perfect. And when Mal finally came out with everything, it was kind of like, 'Oh, shoot. I was wrong.'"
Which means the gold medalist has one less issue with the keyboard warriors that inhabit Ervin's social media feeds.
Because much like anyone trying to parent and live life in the public eye at the same time, the two have grown used to strangers chiming in about how they feed, dress, play and do literally anything with their kids.
"I think Mallory talks me off a cliff," said Johnson, who shares daughter Drew, 2, and 8-month-old son Jett with husband Andrew East.
Her approach, Ervin explained, is to "try to think about that person and what's missing for them in their parenting journey that they feel like they have to expel this? But, still, it hurts every time we read it, especially because the things that they say are so untrue that I get offended if people say something about her. Like, 'You don't even know her! How can you say that?'"
Having catapulted into the spotlight at just 16 when she nabbed her silver all-around and team medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Johnson has long since gone professional in ignoring outside opinions.
"You have to surround yourself with a community of people you trust because it's the only thing that keeps you sane," she explained. "If you let the world dictate how you feel, you will go crazy."
But should she ever stumble, Ervin is right there with the save—one of the core people Johnson will turn to and "be like, 'Someone said this,'" the athlete detailed. "They're either going to say, 'Okay, that is kind of true. We should work on it,' or they're going to say, 'That's completely false. Don't ever think about that again.' And you have to have those people. Your heart wasn't meant for that many opinions."
Though Ervin's views are certainly worth their weight in gold.
For more than a decade, the two have been teammates in navigating life, enjoying major milestones by each other's side. "We've been there when we were dating the men that we're married to, when we got engaged, when we almost got engaged, like, 100 times," Ervin detailed. "And we were there at the hospital when each other had babies. And now our kids walk into their little school together holding hands. They're best friends too."
Because the two have fully embraced the it-takes-a-village approach to motherhood.
"I literally call her every single day," Johnson raved of her two-under-2 guru. "I'm like, 'Oh my gosh, Jett's coughing, and Drew has a runny nose, what do I do?' And she'll walk me through everything."
Their phone-a-friend policy extends to their careers as well, Johnson remembering the post-Olympics, post-treatment stretch that saw them taking midnight runs to light candles at their local church "because we were both in a low place where we were trying to figure out what to do."
Ervin recalls gleaning quite a bit from the athlete's transition from retirement to full-on Internet domination with "all the 900 million things that Shawn and Andrew are starting every day," she joked of the self-described serial entrepreneurs.
"I learned a lot from Shawn's story, because she had even bigger success at such a young age," she shared. "It's like, 'Wow. What in the heck do I do next?' We both kind of fumbled around for a little while. But you find your way to the thing that you're meant to do next."
Though Johnson once pushed her friend to open an Etsy shop ("The door is not shut," Ervin joked. "If everything all burns to the ground, I'll start an Etsy shop"), the former pageant queen and reality star found her place on YouTube where her page has 142,000 dedicated subscribers. (She also commands an audience on her Living Fully podcast and her lifestyle blog.)
"I still remember flying to Los Angeles with Mallory and sitting in on her negotiations for YouTube and social media agents because she hadn't done that before and I hadn't either, but I knew the agent world," Johnson recalled. "Then I came home and told Andrew about it and he's like, 'Maybe we should start a YouTube?'"
More than 1.3 million subscribers to The East Family channel later the two continue to bounce their best ideas off each other.
"For doing such different things and being such different people, so much is the same," said Ervin. Among their shared traits is a desire to go beyond the standard influencer model. "I think that people come to social media because maybe they like to see our houses or what we dress our kids in or what we're cooking for dinner," shared Ervin. "But then if you can just open the curtain a little bit and show them something else, I think that's what's going to bring them happiness."
Which is ultimately why she plowed forward with sharing her nearly decade-old struggle. Recalling a conversation she had with Jamie Kern Lima, who wrote her book's foreword, Ervin shared the advice she passed down. "'If you want to impress people, show them your successes. If you want to impact people, show them your failures,'" Ervin recalled of the message. "And I was like, 'I want to impact people. I don't want to impress them.' So I think that's what Shawn and I are both trying to do in this space."
For those on the hunt for a squad of their own, Ervin offers this simple test.
"When you talk to that person and you get off the phone, did you feel better about what you called them about, or do you feel worse?" she explained. "I think, as an adult, you have to reassess your friends. You don't have time for this vast friend group, and you have to pick the people who are going to help you live a good life, who are going to make you feel better about yourself. I always encourage people to really keep those friends in your life who are supporting you and who want the best for you."
For her, that's Johnson, the BFF who's always known Ervin was pregnant well before she announced, who has walked by her side through each stage of life. (Including, perhaps, a return to The Amazing Race, the two down to team up on the CBS hit.)
"There is some weird connection between Mallory and I," Johnson surmised, the two recalling how people even tell them they look alike. "We're meant to be." Agreed Ervin, "I know we were! We're meant to be."