"It was the most exhilarating feeling. I wanted to jump into their arms!"
Alice Johnson speaks out to GMA about her prison release and reuniting with her family following Kim Kardashian West's appeal to President Trump: pic.twitter.com/PH9TPt1aKO
— Good Morning America (@GMA) June 7, 2018
A day following President Donald Trump commuting her sentence, Alice Marie Johnson is speaking out.
The 63-year-old great-grandmother had been arrested in 1997 for her involvement in a cocaine ring. Although she didn’t engage in any violent activity, she was given a mandatory life sentence plus 25 years, according to ABC News.
“It’s an amazing feeling especially just being with my family again,” she tells “Good Morning America Thursday, June 7. “It was the most exhilarating feeling I’ve ever had, Michael. I wanted to jump into their arms!”
Happy that her prison time is over, Johnson noted that she feels she has more than paid her debt to society but she’s “not bitter about it.”
Kim Kardashian met with Trump last week to put in motion what she had been working toward for the last year: to get Johnson back home to her family. Johnson told GMA when she met Kardashian and the reality starlet learned about her story, the beauty mogul said she “knew this was meant to be.”
“When I popped up on her phone it was a moment when she knew that … this is the person that she needs to do something [for].”
As for how she received news of her release, Johnson said Kardashian was the one who told her she’d get to go home.
“When Kim told me that I was being released, I started jumping up and screaming and crying and everyone else was crying,” Johnson recalled. “It was wonderful. I’m so glad that she was the one who was able to deliver the news to me. It was a perfect ending.”
The phone call I just had with Alice will forever be one of my best memories. Telling her for the first time and hearing her screams while crying together is a moment I will never forget.
— Kim Kardashian West (@KimKardashian) June 6, 2018
Johnson said she has not heard directly from the White House but she’d like to tell Trump how grateful she is for having her released — for herself and her family.
“This moment right now I happening because President Trump had mercy on me and I’d like to tell him that please, please remember the others who have been behind because there are so many, as you say like me who need to have the opportunity that I’ve had.”
On Thursday, Trump tweeted a message to Johnson wishing her well.
Good luck to Alice Johnson. Have a wonderful life!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2018
