MyKayla Skinner Says She’s ‘Heartbroken’ Over Simone Biles’ Clapback

MyKayla Skinner is talking out after some back-and-forth drama with Simone Biles throughout the 2024 Olympic Video games.

Skinner, 27, addressed the caption that Biles posted on Instagram seemingly shading her with a prolonged video posted to her personal account on Tuesday, Aug. 6, through which she made a direct plea to Biles, 27, to ask her followers to cease cyberbullying Skinner and her household.

In June, Skinner made headlines when she shared harsh criticism for the 2024 U.S. girls’s inventive gymnastics workforce in a since-deleted YouTube video. Skinner later mentioned that her feedback had been “misinterpreted” and finally issued a press release apologizing.

Within the new clip, Skinner mentioned that after her preliminary feedback in June, she posted an apology video, and despatched written apologies and particular person messages to your entire Group USA gymnastics lineup, which incorporates Biles, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey, Suni Lee and Hezly Rivera.

“Solely Simone had responded and he or she advised me that she was pleased with me,” Skinner mentioned. “You guys can think about my shock final week after I was celebrating our workforce profitable gold, simply to see this introduced up yet again by a caption on an Instagram submit.”

Skinner continued, saying that if Biles “actually believes” that Skinner known as the workforce “lazy and missing expertise,” as Biles implied in her Instagram caption, then she is “actually heartbroken over it.”

The gymnast mentioned she felt as if Biles’ submit, which got here after Group USA gained the ladies’s workforce remaining, “fueled one other wave of hateful feedback” that included demise threats to her, her husband, Jonas Harmer, and their 11-month-old daughter, Charlotte.

“To Simone, I’m asking you straight and publicly to please put a cease to this,” Skinner mentioned. “Please ask your followers to cease. You will have been an unbelievable champion for psychological well being consciousness and lots of people want your assist now. We have been harm and attacked in ways in which I’m sure you by no means meant. Your efficiency, the workforce’s efficiency and the Olympics typically needs to be a time that we help each other and carry every and our nation up. I really like our nation and I really like our workforce. And I hope that we are able to transfer on and transfer ahead and cheer on the remainder of our teammates and athletes collectively.”

Elsewhere in her video, Skinner mentioned she’d hoped the matter “would not must be revisited,” however felt the necessity to converse out after the quantity of cyberbullying she and her family members confronted. “I’m simply asking for it to cease for the sake of my household as a result of sufficient is sufficient,” she mentioned.

Skinner additionally mentioned she takes full “duty for poorly articulating the purpose I used to be attempting to make,” and that inflicting hurt or offending Group USA was “the very last thing I needed.”

“I do know these girls are unbelievable — the perfect of the very best — and virtually all of them are my former teammates who I’ve loved very a lot cheering on the previous few years,” mentioned Skinner, who competed in Tokyo in 2021 alongside Biles, Chiles, 23, and Lee, 21.

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In her first apology assertion, Skinner mentioned it was “not my intention to offend or disrespect any of the athletes or to remove from their onerous work.”

“Your onerous work and dedication has paid off and I congratulate every one among you,” Skinner mentioned within the assertion. “Upon reflection I used to be evaluating the ‘Marta Period’ to the present period. I’m coming to phrases that I’ve not absolutely handled the emotional and verbal abuse I endured beneath Marta that maybe led to my hurtful feedback. I take full duty for what I mentioned and I deeply apologize.”

Within the video at hand, Skinner critiqued the gymnasts’ “work ethic” and mentioned “numerous women do not work as onerous.”

The workforce earned a gold medal within the workforce all-around remaining in Paris on July 31. Whereas celebrating their victory on Instagram, Biles wrote, “Lack of expertise, lazy, olympic champions ❤️🥇🇺🇸.” It was interpreted by many to be a direct dig at Skinner.

The following day, Biles and Chiles mentioned on X (previously often called Twitter) and Instagram, respectively, that Skinner had blocked Biles on Instagram.

Skinner and Biles had been beforehand on the U.S. nationwide workforce collectively, and likewise each competed within the Tokyo Video games — although Skinner was a solo competitor for the U.S. and never part of Group USA’s girls’s gymnastics workforce.

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