Mary Kay Letourneau’s Daughters With Vili Fualaau ‘Miss Their Mom,’ Says Friend: ‘They Had a Strong Bond’

As Vili Fualaau's daughter Georgia prepares for the arrival of her first child, she and her sister Audrey wish their mother, Mary Kay Letourneau, could be there to meet her grandson when he arrives.

"Despite everything that you can say about her, she was their mom," a friend of Letourneau, who died of Stage 4 cancer in 2020, tells The Messenger.

"She tried very hard to raise Audrey and Georgia well, and I think she succeeded for the most part."

Letourneau's daughters "miss their mom," adds the source, who says their grief is amplified now that Georgia is pregnant with a son.

"This is a happy time," the friend continues, "but that makes them miss her all the more."

It hasn't always been easy. Georgia, 24, and Audrey, 26, spent the first years of their lives separated from Letourneau, who was serving a seven-year prison sentence for raping their father, who was 12 when she met him.

Letourneau was a married sixth-grade teacher in 1996 when she began sexually abusing Fualaau. He was her student at the time.

She became pregnant by Fualaau twice before he was 15. Audrey was born in 1997, and Georgia came along the following year.

The girls were raised by a maternal grandmother while their mother was behind bars.

When Letourneau's imprisonment for child rape was over in 2004 and she was released, Faulaau was an adult. He petitioned the court to allow them to see each other. They married in 2005.

But a reconciliation with her daughters didn't come right away. The girls, still in elementary school, had difficulty trusting their mother at first.

"It took time," Letourneau's friend explains. "The girls went through a lot during their early years. It wasn't easy for them. But they worked through their issues, and they had a eventually strong bond with their mother."

As for Fualaau, he has moved forward since Letourneau's death. Now 40, he has a 1-year-old daughter, Sophia, from a new relationship.

"She was an important part of his life," the friend says of Fualaau and Letourneau. "And he will always have a place is his heart for her, but now he's focusing on his new life."