MyKayla Skinner Makes Plea to Simone Biles After Getting Death Threats for Comments

Kristen Wong | Aug 6, 2024

Danielle Parhizkaran-USA TODAY Sports

Former Team USA gymnast MyKayla Skinner broke her silence on Tuesday amid an ongoing Olympic feud with ex-teammate Simone Biles.

In an emotional video posted to her Instagram, Skinner asked Biles to tell her social media followers to help put a stop to the onslaught of “hateful comments” and “death threats” that Skinner and her family have received in the past week. 

“To Simone, I am asking you directly and publicly, to please put a stop to this,” Skinner said. “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. 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 that we support one another and lift each other and our country up.”

Skinner continued, “I love our country and I love our team, and I hope that we can move on and move forward and cheer on the rest of our teammates and athletes together.”

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A post shared by MyKayla Skinner (Harmer) (@mykaylaskinner2016)

Skinner added that she sent individual apologies to each member of the Team USA squad during the Olympics. She also said she would be taking a break from social media.

After the U.S. women’s gymnastics squad won a gold medal in the team finals at the Paris Games on July 30, Biles celebrated the victory with a social media post that appeared to throw shade at Skinner. Biles captioned her post, “lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions.” Skinner had previously criticized Team USA’s talent and work ethic. 

Shortly after Biles’s post went viral, it was revealed that Skinner had blocked Biles on Instagram. 

Skinner competed with Biles at the Tokyo Games in 2021 and retired from gymnastics in August of that year.