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"  The first two weeks of August saw the news media in overdrive with the shocking story of Hannah Anderson \u2014 the 16-year-old San Diego girl abducted from her home and held captive in the wilderness of Idaho by her &amp;quot;family friend,&amp;quot; James DiMaggio, after he set fire to her family home, killing her mother and brother. This morning, Anderson gave her first interview to NBC&amp;#039;s TODAY, where she clarified details regarding her relationship with DiMaggio, who she called &amp;quot;Uncle Jim,&amp;quot; explaining the text messages sent from her phone to him on the day of her abduction, where he was supposed to pick her up from cheerleading camp. &amp;quot;And he didn&amp;#039;t know the address or what \u2014 like, where I was,&amp;quot; she said. &amp;quot;So I had to tell him the address and tell him that I was gonna be in the gym and not in front of the school, just so he knew where to come get me.&amp;quot; As for letters from her to DiMaggio from a year prior, she explained that he was helping her work out the turmoil in her relationship with her mother. &amp;quot;Me and him would talk about how to deal with it,&amp;quot; she said. &amp;quot;And I&amp;#039;d tell him how I felt about it. And he helped me through it. They weren&amp;#039;t anything bad. They&amp;#039;re just to help me through tough times.&amp;quot; While she also thanked those who worked together to help rescue her, the interview served mostly as a platform for Anderson to address her critics and detractors. &amp;quot;You are who you are,&amp;quot; she said. &amp;quot;And \u2014 you shouldn&amp;#039;t let people change that. And you have your own opinion on yourself, and other people&amp;#039;s opinion shouldn&amp;#039;t matter.&amp;quot;  It&amp;#039;s not surprising that so many have been quick to say there&amp;#039;s something fishy about the story \u2014 in the interview, she seemed unusually composed, or even disaffected. Still, the right question to be asking is probably not, &amp;quot;Why does Hannah Anderson seem weird?&amp;quot; but rather, &amp;quot;Who are we to criticize how a 16-year-old girl deals with a trauma that extraordinary?&amp;quot; Photo via NBC NewsWire  Follow Sam on Twitter. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a15320/hannah-anderson-kidnapping-interview/>