There were lots of eyeballs glued to the tube as kidnapping survivor Jaycee Dugard broke her silence about her 18 year ordeal at the hands of convicted rapist Phillip Garido and his wife, Nancy, in an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer.
Sawyer’s interview with Dugard, which aired Sunday night, netted 14.8 million viewers, according to preliminary numbers compiled by USA TODAY. The ratings mean Jaycee’s tell-all will likely be the second most-watched show of the week, behind America’s Got Talent. Dugard had become the prize in a high-stakes game featuring some of the biggest names in TV news — including Sawyer, Tom Brokaw, Anderson Cooper, and Katie Couric.
Dugard was 11 when she was kidnapped on the way to school in Lake Tahoe, California in 1991. She was held captive in Garrido’s backyard for 18 years, over which time she gave birth to two children with Garrido. She wasn’t seen again until she walked into a police station in 2009.
Dugard’s memoir, A Stolen Life, will be published on July 12.