Simone Biles is unlike any other athlete on the planet, but something she does have in common with others is taking a lot of hate and criticism on social media. And it’s easy for some when they can hide behind their screens and say nasty things to the greatest gymnast of all time.
But her haters ended up fueling her to compete while wearing leotards with rhinestone goat heads on them.
In the latest episode of Simone vs Herself — a Facebook Watch docuseries highlighting Biles’ life and training up to and after the Tokyo Olympics this summer — she opens up about her critics.
In the final episode, titled What Can’t I Do?, to drop before the Games, she says:
“Lately, I haven’t been as active on social media, and I feel like I’m kind of getting to the point where I don’t share as much. But I’ve always been so open and honest with my fans, and I feel like it’s kind of punishing my fans for the haters, you know?
“But at the end of the day, it’s like, people are just so rude. They tweet me that they hope I fall on bars. They hope I mess up the entire meet. I’m not as good [as] I was in 2016.
“They were just saying the most outrageous things. They don’t care. They probably think you’re not gonna see it or you don’t care or they don’t think we’re human like them.”
Simone vs Herself director Gotham Chopra recently told For The Win that while examining Biles’ greatness, a huge focus of the docuseries was to highlight the raw, human side of her as well.
In the latest episode, Biles acknowledges she worries about the criticism that may come if she messes up, and she discusses the pressures that come with doing challenging and dangerous moves, like the Yurchenko double pike on vault, where she says a mistake could end with a broken ankle or snapped shin.
And Biles explains what led to her wearing her GOAT leotards while training and competing. She says:
“We wore the GOAT [leotard] just to kind of I wouldn’t say to piss people off but mess with them because there were a lot of people that say, ‘Hey, Simone, you’re the GOAT.’ But then if I acknowledge it, then I’m cocky.
“Everybody can call you the GOAT, but then if you acknowledge it once, they’re like, ‘Oh my god, I hate her! She’s not that awesome!’ I don’t think it’s fair that you can stand behind the computer and talk all that smack, and I just take it as an athlete. So it was kind of just to push back, and then it just pissed them off, so in the end, we won. People loved it, they hated it, I loved it.”
Whether or not Biles will wear a GOAT leotard at the Tokyo Olympics remains to be seen, but no matter what, she’s undeniably the greatest of all time.
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