Former Olympic gymnast MyKayla Skinner — and Simone Biles’ former teammate — issued a plea to the Olympic Gold medalist to make the death threats against her family and cyber-bullying stop.
Skinner faced a backlash after she posted a video in June on YouTube during the gymnastic Olympic trials in which she talked about how she felt work ethics have changed among gymnasts, not counting Biles, the Hollywood Reporter reported.
“Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and the depth just isn’t what it used to be,” Skinner said, at the time. “I mean, obviously, a lot of girls just don’t work as hard. The girls just don’t have the work ethic.”
The Olympics started July 26th and on July 31st Biles appeared to send a cryptic message to her former teammate, writing on social media, “Lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions,” in the caption next to a photo of the U.S. Team celebrating its victory after getting the gold.
On Tuesday, Skinner pleaded with Biles to get her followers to stop making hateful comments and threats to her, her husband, and their 10-month-old daughter.
“I sincerely hoped that this topic wouldn’t need to be revisited but unfortunately things have really gotten out of hand lately,” Skinner said. “And it’s one thing to disagree with me regarding something I have said or a point I was trying to make, but it’s something else entirely when that turns into cyberbullying or even worse.”
“Watching people cheer on the bullying — which has led to threats of physical harm to me my husband and our daughter — is disgusting,” she added. “So please at this point, I’m just asking for it to stop for the sake of my family because enough is enough.”
Skinner noted that she apologized for her past comments on July 6 and personally reached out to her former teammates amid the backlash, noting that Biles was the only person who responded to her, saying that she was proud of her. The former gymnast said when Biles made the post it came as a “surprise” to her.
“If Simone truly believes that I called our team lazy and lacking talent and if that’s really how she feels, I am really heartbroken over it,” the former gymnast said. “But not just heartbroken because it isn’t what I feel or even how I previously said, but because Simone’s latest post and others that followed it fueled another wave of hateful comments, DMs, articles and emails.
“Hate that includes death threats to me, my family, and even my agent,” she added.”My family and my friends don’t deserve to be caught in the crossfire here. They’ve done nothing.”
She concluded her post pleading with Biles to “please put a stop to this. Please ask your followers to stop.”
“You have been an incredible champion for mental health awareness and a lot of people need your help now,” Skinner said. “We’ve been attacked in ways that I’m certain you never intended. Your performance, the team’s performance and the Olympics in general should be a time that we support one another.”
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