MyKayla Skinner asks Simone Biles to call off cyberbullies

MyKayla Skinner to Simone Biles: ‘Please ask your followers to stop’ with death threats

A split image of MyKayla Skinner at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, and Simone Biles at the 2024 Paris Games

Published Aug. 7, 2024 Updated Aug. 8, 2024 7:33 AM PT

MyKayla Skinner is asking for Simone Biles’ help.

Skinner, a former U.S. gymnast who won a silver medal in vault at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, says she and her loved ones have been subject to cyberbullying and death threats after an Instagram post by Biles last week appeared to reference recent comments by Skinner that were critical of some current members of the U.S. gymnastics team.

Now Skinner is calling on her onetime teammate to put a stop to it all.

“My family and my friends don’t deserve to be caught in a crossfire here. They’ve done nothing,” Skinner said in a video she posted Tuesday on Instagram. “So to Simone, I am asking you directly and publicly 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. We’ve been hurt and attacked in ways that I am certain you never intended.”

As of Wednesday morning, Biles had yet to publicly respond to Skinner’s post.

Following the U.S. Olympic gymnastics trials in June, Skinner took to YouTube and posted her thoughts as a retired gymnast on the athletes representing the country at the Paris Games.

In the now-deleted video, Skinner said, “Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and the depth just isn’t like what it used to be” and “I mean, obviously a lot of girls don’t work as hard. The girls just don’t have the work ethic.”

Days later, Biles wrote on Threads, “not everyone needs a mic and a platform.” It was interpreted by many to be a response to Skinner, who eventually apologized.

Biles won four medals — gold in team, all-around and vault, and silver in floor — in Paris to bring her career Olympics medal count to 11. After the U.S. team’s win on July 30, Biles posted photos on Instagram of herself and teammates Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera celebrating.

“Lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions ❤️🥇🇺🇸,” Biles wrote in the post.

In an interview with People magazine Tuesday, Biles said the caption was her way of having her teammates’ backs.

“I just felt like it was right in that moment to stand up for them, because they’re so young and they haven’t fully stood in their power yet,” Biles said.

Social media users immediately recognized the apparent reference to Skinner’s comments in Biles’ post. The next day, Biles posted on X, “I’ve been blocked.” Chiles posted a photo to her Instagram Stories that showed what was presumably Biles’ phone open to Skinner’s Instagram page, along with a caption by Chiles, “When she blocks Simone.”

Skinner, 27, said in her video this week that she had sent “individual messages to each of the women on the team” following her comments in June.

So, she said, “you guys can imagine my surprise last week when I was celebrating our team winning gold, just to see this brought up all over again by a caption on an Instagram post. 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.

“But not just heartbroken because it isn’t how I feel or even what I previously said, but heartbroken because Simone’s latest post and others that followed it fueled another wave of hateful comments, DMs, articles, emails — hate that includes death threats to me, my family and even my agent.”

Skinner indicated that some “threats of physical harm” were made toward her daughter, who was born in September.

“So please, at this point, I am just asking for it to just stop for the sake of my family,” she said, “because enough is enough.”