Simone Biles is riding high after her incredible win at the Paris Olympics, which saw all members of Team U.S.A's female gymnastics squad taking home gold. The 27-year-old took a moment to not only celebrate her victory, but also dismiss naysayers of the team on social media.
The gold medalist took to Instagram to share a photo of herself and her team members looking ecstatic as they carried their flag across the gymnastics mat. She captioned the photo: "lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions" with a heart emoji and a medal emoji.
With netizens watching as Simone went head-to-head with former teammate MyKayla Skinner, what happened between these two gymnasts that has led to this so-called feud? Here's all you need to know.
Who was Simone responding to?
Many have perceived this to be a response to former gymnast MyKayla Skinner, who in a now-deleted YouTube video criticized the 2024 team and suggested that the talent and work ethic were not there when compared to other years.
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Speculation that Simone's caption responded to her former teammate was seemingly confirmed when former gold medalist McKayla Maroney responded: "It doesn’t get more iconic than this.. She f’d around n found out fr. Feels like I need to apologize just to redeem my first name."
Simone's husband Jonathan Owens seemed to back up McKayla when he chimed in: "F AROUND AND FIND OUT"- joining his wife in clapping back. He also added: "Gold Medalist" with a number of celebratory emojis.
The record-breaker's teammate Jordan Chiles added: "And that’s on periodt!!"
MyKayla's comments
The retired athlete said: "Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and the depth just isn't like what it used to be." She continued: "A lot of girls don't work as hard, the girls just don't have the work ethic."
MyKayla then went on to suggest that a change in attitude from coaches - brought on by the creation of non-profit U.S. Center for Safesport, safeguarding against abuse in athletics - was part of the reason for the lacking work ethic.
"Coaches can't get on athletes and they have to be really careful what they say," she said. "Which, in some ways, is really good, but at the same time, to get to where you need to be in gymnastics you do have to be, I feel like, a little aggressive and a little intense."
This comment went down like a lead balloon - particularly as the likes of Simone Biles and McKayla Maroney testified before the U.S. Senate about the mishandling by FBI agents of abuse allegations brought against Larry Nassar. It was a landmark moment of recognition of the types of abuse faced by gymnasts. Simone even took to Threads to state that "Not everyone needs a mic and a platform."
The silver medalist deleted the video, apologizing as she explained her comments were "misinterpreted or misunderstood."
Blocked on social media
If people hadn't put two and two together from Simone's initial post, the star gymnast made it clearer that she was posting about MyKayla when she revealed via Jordan Chiles' Instagram story that she had been blocked by the former gymnast.
Simone's relationship with MyKayla
At 27 years old, Simone is the most decorated gymnast in history, with 40 medals on the world stage - including five gold medals, one silver, and two bronzes at the Olympics.
But in 2020's Tokyo Olympics, the decorated gymnast sadly had to step down due to a case of the 'twisties'. It was MyKayla who stepped in for Simone during the Vaults finals, which led to her winning a silver medal.
They had previously been teammates when MyKayla was an alternate in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
MyKayla's other controversies
This isn't the first time the gymnast's behavior has come under fire. MyKayla has been accused of racism, after she retweeted a photo of the U.S women's gymnastics team with herself photo-shopped in Gabby Douglas's place with racist emojis. Separately, people have found at least one old tweet where she used a racist slur. During the pandemic the gymnast allegedly went out in public while she contracted COVID-19 instead of isolating.