Simone Biles took a moment from her gold medal celebrations to address past criticisms from her former teammate, MyKayla Skinner.
The perfectly timed response quickly went viral, amassing over two million likes on Instagram.
Hours after Biles alongside teammates Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, and Jade Carey, dominated the competition at the Olympics team final at Bercy Arena in Paris, she posted a series of celebratory photos on Instagram. The caption read, “Lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions.”
This was a pointed reference to Skinner’s controversial comments from earlier this summer. In a YouTube video following the formation of Team USA, Skinner remarked, “Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and the depth just isn’t, like, what it used to be. A lot of girls don’t work as hard. The girls just don’t have the work ethic.”
Despite Skinner later claiming that her comments were “misinterpreted,” Biles and her teammates seemingly didn’t let the remarks slide. Chiles and Lee both endorsed Biles’ post, with Lee adding, “Put a finger down if Simone Biles just ended you,” and Chiles chiming in with, “And that’s on periodt!!”
Former Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney also joined the conversation, writing, “She f’d around n found out fr. Feels like I need to apologize just to redeem my first name.”
As of Wednesday morning, Biles’ post had garnered nearly 2.5 million likes.
In a gesture of reconciliation, Skinner posted an image of the American gymnasts with heart emojis after the podium ceremony.
Biles and Skinner previously competed together at the 2020 Tokyo Games. Skinner earned a silver medal in the vault, while Biles, now the most decorated U.S. women’s gymnast, won silver in the team event and bronze in the balance beam competition.
