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MyKayla Skinner is begging Simone Biles to help her stop the cyberbullying she and her family are receiving over comments she made before the Olympics.
Skinner, Simone Biles’ teammate on the 2020 US women’s gymnastics team that competed in Tokyo, has been catching heat from Biles’ fans for comments she made before the Olympics in a now-deleted YouTube video.
“Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and the depth just isn’t like what it used to be,” Skinner said. “I mean, obviously, a lot of girls don’t work as hard. The girls just don’t have the work ethic.”
Skinner would later claim her comments were “misinterpreted” and “misunderstood,” but following Team USA’s gold medal win Simone Biles fired a not-so-veiled shot Skinner’s way on social media.
Biles’ teammate Suni Lee and former United States Olympic gymnasts McKayla Maroney and Nasita Luikin piled on with comments of their own directed at MyKayla Skinner, who later blocked Simone on X (Twitter).
On Tuesday, the 2020 Olympic vault silver medalist said in an Instagram video that she and her family have been the victims of intense cyberbullying.
“I love our country and don’t want to take anything away from our athletes. Let’s use this time to build each other up, not tear others down,” Skinner wrote in the caption to her video.
In the video, Skinner says the hate she has received has gotten out of hand.
“Watching people cheer on the bullying … is disgusting,” she said. “So please at this point, I’m just asking for it to stop for the sake of my family because enough is enough.”
The 27-year-old two-time NCAA champion also claimed that she had apologized to the Team USA gymnasts and received a response from Biles, who said she was “proud” of her.
“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,” Skinner continued, adding, “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 what I feel or even how I previously said, but because Simone’s latest post and others that followed it fueled another wave of hateful comments, DMs, articles and emails.”
Skinner then begged Biles to help her out.
“I am asking you directly and publicly to please put a stop to this,” she said. “Please ask your followers to stop.”