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Before there was Olivia Dunne, there was McKayla Maroney.
McKayla Maroney became the most famous gymnast on the planet in 2012 when she won a silver medal at the Summer Olympics in London.
Both her gutsy performance with a damaged right foot and her “not impressed” face during the medal ceremony which was turned into a huge meme and catapulted her to astronomical heights of fame.
Maroney didn’t go to college so there were no NIL deals for her the way there are today for gymnasts like Livvy Dunne. Still, she managed to earn, by some reports, up to around $500,000 in some years and her net worth is estimated to be somewhere between $3 million and $6 million.
Interestingly, it has been 11 years since McKayla Maroney blew up on the internet thanks to her Olympics performance and she is still only 28-years-old, or just seven years older than Olivia Dunne is now.
Her post-gymnastics career has been a bit of a mixed bag. She competed in some professional events before retiring from competition in 2016. She appeared on Dancing With The Stars and even tried launching a singing career.
But then she kind of disappeared off and on, but never more so than over the past six months when her usually active social media accounts went completely dark.
On Wednesday, she returned to Instagram with an explanation.
“I’ve been gone for awhile because my health has been BAD!!” Maroney wrote in an Instagram story.
“Been in survival mode since last May really, so it’s been tough – but God has been with me, and he has delivered me from things I’m in awe over.
“It’s been a wild experience. Since January he’s been speaking to me 3/13 … 3/13 … 3/13 … I didn’t know what he meant or what he was going to do.
“God uses 13 a lot with me, because my dad died on 1/13 – so it’s a meaningful number for me…
“Well – today was my first day back in the gym, since last September,” Maroney continued.
“Anyway – a month or so ago things with my health got EVEN WORSE!!!!
“I started having insane anxiety for no reason out of nowhere, it was like a two week long panic attack, adrenaline dumps, burning weird nerve pain.
“Plus weird histamine type itching that I’ve been having since September. Not regular skin itching. It’s internal. It’s like I’m getting bit by misquotes [sic] all over. It literally hurts. Or like rubber bands snapped on me all night.
“I was already having severe insomnia so for two weeks[,] I didn’t sleep. I would just walk my neighborhood at 5 a.m. because it was so uncomfortable to be in my body.
“I had to do something. I was grateful if I fell asleep at 6 a.m.
“Well… *drum roll* I found out low iron, *ferritin* has been the cause of most [of] my health issues for the last year, but really since 2021.”
Hopefully, we will all be seeing more her now that she’s gotten her health finally straightened out.