MyKayla Skinner calls on Simone Biles to stop her followers from ‘cyberbullying’

The former gymnast said she got death threats after Biles appeared to clapback at comments she made about the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team.

MyKayla Skinner and Simone Biles at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo on July 22, 2021.Gregory Bull / AP file

MyKayla Skinner posted a video to Instagram on Tuesday calling on Simone Biles to stop her 11.8 million followers from “cyberbullying” her after Biles appeared to clapback at comments by Skinner.

“To Simone, I am asking you directly and publicly to please put a stop to this,” Skinner said in Tuesday’s video. “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 attacked in ways that I’m certain you never intended.”

After winning the team gold medal in Paris, Biles posted a photo to Instagram with the caption “lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions,” which appeared to allude to contentious comments Skinner, a former teammate, made during the 2024 U.S. Olympic trials.

Skinner, 27, who won a silver medal in vault in Tokyo after Biles withdrew from the final, allegedly blocked Biles on social media after the pointed caption, according to an Instagram story posted by two-time Olympian Jordan Chiles, as well as a post on X by Biles.

During the U.S. Olympic trials in June, Skinner shared her live reactions to the Paris team’s selection in a YouTube video that has since been deleted.

“I feel like the talent and the depth just isn’t what it used to be … obviously, a lot of the girls don’t work as hard,” Skinner said in the June video.

In her Instagram post Tuesday, Skinner said she became the subject of “cyberbullying or even worse,” including “death threats” directed at her and her family, since Biles alluded to the controversy last week.

Skinner said the resurgence of criticism has taken a toll on her well-being and asked, “Please at this point, I’m just asking for it to stop for the sake of my family because enough is enough.”

A few days after her comments in June, Skinner posted an apology on social media.

“I want to formally apologize to Team USA and our gymnastic community for my comments during my recent YouTube episodes,” Skinner said on X. “It was not my intention to offend or disrespect any of the athletes or to take away from their hard work.”

While she had noted in her deleted video that Biles was an exception to her criticism of the team’s work ethic, she nonetheless faced swift backlash for disparaging the dedication, physical appearance and depth of the rest of the U.S. team.

Her comment that 2021 Olympic all-around champion Suni Lee did not have a “gymnastics body” attracted particular scrutiny, as well as an assertion that SafeSport, an organization established in response to the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal to prevent future abuse, was in part to blame for what she viewed as a decline in the coaching quality in the sport.

Nassar was convicted in 2018 of molesting hundreds of young girls and sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison. Biles, who has said she is among the hundreds of survivors of Nassar’s abuse, unfollowed Skinner on social media in the days after her original comments.

Skinner said Monday that she sent personal text messages to current team members before the Olympics, apologizing for her comments.

“Only Simone had responded and she told me that she was proud of me … 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,” Skinner said in her Instagram video.

After Biles’ Instagram post last week, Skinner reportedly blocked the 11-time Olympic medalist on social media, according to an Instagram story posted by Chiles and a post on X by Biles.

“Simone’s latest post and others that followed it fueled another wave of hateful comments, DMs, articles and emails.,” Skinner said of Biles’ apparent clapback.

The caption immediately attracted support from some of the most accomplished U.S. Olympics gymnasts, such as Lee, McKayla Maroney, Laurie Hernandez and Nastia Liukin, in the comments section.

The controversy reached a fever pitch under the spotlight of the Paris Games, but Skinner also faced scrutiny in 2016 for sharing an altered photo of Gabby Douglas that some described as racist. The edited photo implied that Skinner should have made the 2016 U.S. Olympic team over Douglas, who became the first Black Olympic all-around champion in 2012.

Skinner was named an alternate, but did not get the chance to compete in Rio.

She qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as an individual competitor for the U.S., meaning she was not a part of the Olympic team that won silver there. At first, she failed to qualify for any Tokyo apparatus finals, but Biles’ withdrawal from the vault final gave Skinner the opportunity to compete.

After Tokyo, she retired from elite gymnastics and gave birth to a daughter in September.