MyKayla Skinner has posted an emotional video, begging her former Olympic teammate Simone Biles to urge her followers to stop the online “hate” and “death threats” that she says she and her family have endured since she sparked a feud with the seven-time gold medalist by deriding the “work ethic” of the current U.S. gymnastics team.
“I sincerely hoped that this topic wouldn’t have to be revisited, but unfortunately things have really gotten out of hand lately,” Skinner said on Instagram Tuesday, while claiming that her family and friends “don’t deserve to be caught in the crossfire here.”
“They’ve done nothing,” Skinner said. “So, to Simone, I am asking you directly and publicly to please put a stop to this. Please ask your followers to stop.”
As of Tuesday morning in the United States, or evening in Paris, Biles had yet to respond to Skinner’s Instagram post — if she was even aware of it. She simply posted on X: “just woke up from a much needed nap.”
Skinner, 27, sparked a feud with Biles and backlash from other top gymnasts when she posted a since-deleted July 3 vlog, commenting negatively on the 2024 team going to Paris. While she briefly, if perfunctorily, praised Biles, she also said that Suni Lee did not have a “gymnast body,” criticized the team’s makeup, mispronounced team member Hezly Rivera’s name and asserted that the team, overall, lacked the talent, depth and “work ethic” of years past.
Skinner also made things worse when she complained about the changing culture of gymnastics, with its increased focus on athletes’ physical and mental health safety. She said that the U.S. Center for SafeSport had made it harder for coaches to push their athletes to Olympic levels. Skinner didn’t mention that the independent nonprofit was founded to reduce sexual, physical and emotional abuse of minors and athletes. Starting in 2016, USA gymnastics faced a reckoning over reports of widespread sexual abuse committed by Larry Nasser, the former national team doctor. Biles and some of Skinner’s gymnastics contemporaries came forward to identify themselves as Nasser’s victims.
Biles appeared to hit back at Skinner on July 30 after she led members of the gymnastics team to win the gold in the team competition, the first of their total 10 U.S. medals at the Paris Olympics. Biles shared a carousel of Instagram images of her and teammates Lee, Rivera, Jade Carey and Jordan Chiles, raising an American flag to celebrate their win. Biles, who won four medals at the games, captioned her post, “lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions.” The following day, Biles told her 1.7 million followers on X that she had been blocked, TMZ reported. While she didn’t name names, the assumption is that she was blocked by Skinner.
Skinner was an alternate for the U.S. team at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, when Biles won four gold medals, including for the all-around competition. She took Biles’ place in the final vault competition at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. She won silver, after Biles withdrew from the games, citing mental health and physical safety concerns. She retired from gymnastics in 2021 to study broadcast journalism. She also married and gave birth to a daughter in September 2023.
After Skinner faced initial blowback for her vlog from Biles and others associated with the current team, she deleted it and issued an apology. She claimed that her comments were “misinterpreted” and “misunderstood. But she again poured the proverbial salt into very deep wounds by suggesting she appreciated aspects of gymnasts’ work ethic “in the Martha (Karolyi) era.”
Subsequent investigative reporting by the Associated Press, ESPN’s 30 for 30 podcast, the Indianapolis Star and other outlets showed that Nasser’s abuse was enabled by the “cruel,” “toxic,” authoritarian gymnastics culture created by former national coaches Bela and Martha Karolyi. The husband-and-wife duo from Romania became celebrities in the sports world by coaching past champions Nadia Comaneci and Mary Lou Retton.
“I’m not sticking up for Martha or saying what she did was good,” Skinner said in her Instagram apology. “I’m just saying it was different. So sorry for anything that got out of context or seemed hurtful.”
On Tuesday, Skinner said she took 100% responsibility for poorly articulating “the point I was trying to make” about the Paris team. “I know these women are incredible — the very best of the best,” she said. “And almost all of them are my former teammates, who I have enjoyed very much cheering on the last few years.”
After she publicly apologized for her vlog, she said she sent individual messages to each of the women on the team, but said “only Simone responded” with a positive note, saying “that she was proud of me.”
So, Skinner said, she was surprised that Biles seemed to hit out at her after the team won the team gold medal. Skinner said she was dismayed to “to see this all brought up all over again by a caption on an Instagram post.”
Skinner also said she was “heartbroken” if Biles truly believes that she thought the team was “lazy and lacking talent.” The retired gymnast also said she was “heartbroken” because Biles’ social media post and others have fueled “a wave of hateful comments” and “death threats to me, my family and even my agent.”
To plead her case, Skinner also tried to appeal to Biles’ advocacy on behalf of mental health by saying, “You have been an incredible champion for mental health awareness, and a lot of people need your help now. We’ve been hurt and attacked in ways that I am certain you never intended.”
“Your performance, the team’s performance and the Olympics in general should be a time when we support one another and lift each other and our country up,” Skinner said. “I love our country and I love our team and I hope we can move on and move forward and cheer on the rest of our teammates and our athletes together.”
