Carli Lloyd reveals how ‘brainwashing’ coach tore family apart

A “narcissistic” personal coach drove a wedge between Carli Lloyd and her family for more than a decade, but the former U.S. Women’s National Team gold medalist is thrilled that she now has a healthy relationship with her family members.

Lloyd, the two-time World Cup winner who’s now an analyst for Fox Sports, got emotional as she detailed on CBS Sports’ “Kickin’ It” how her former personal coach, James Galanis, changed her personal life for the worse.

“I consider myself strong, I consider myself being able to read people but when someone is narcissistic and when someone is really, really good at manipulating, even the strongest people fall victim to it,” Lloyd said. “I kicked myself for months, weeks. I just kept going over and over again all the moments, once you see it, once you’re open to it it becomes so obvious but it was not open in that moment.”

Lloyd, 41, enlisted Galanis in 2003 to help her take her career to the next level.

She felt she needed someone to take her that final “20 percent” to her max potential.

Lloyd felt she blamed too many others in his career, wasn’t fit enough and needed technical improvement.

While Lloyd felt she improved and ultimately achieved great things, she said “it came with a price.”

“When you strive for greatness and you want to succeed in life there are things you sacrifice. I didn’t see things clearly because I was on a mission to be the best,” Lloyd said. “Slowly, people in my life were getting chopped off and chopped out.”

Lloyd said she didn’t talk to her family for 12 years from 2008-20.

“The price of my family missing out, missed weddings. My dad nearly had a heart attack,” Lloyd said. “Those are moments you don’t get back.”

The COVID outbreak in 2020 helped Lloyd realize she needed to make a change.

‘It completely opened my eyes to a lot of things. The control, the manipulation, the brainwashing, driving a wedge through my family – all of these things that I didn’t see or I didn’t have the opportunity for life to slow down for me to see. I saw it all,” Lloyd said. “I was going back and back, and the person you trust with your life, you think someone that is in your life for that long is going to do right by you and it was the total opposite.”

One conversation in particular with her sister resonated with Lloyd, and brought her to tears while she recalled the moment.

“She was about to give birth to her first and she called me and left me a voicemail, and I’ll never forget it,” Lloyd said. “She said she didn’t want her first-born to not know her aunt.”

Lloyd eventually cut ties with Galanis in 2020, which allowed her to end her career with family by her side.

Said Lloyd: “I was rewarded with seeing it before I was done playing, and my family got to enjoy the whole last year of my career.”