After winning gold in the women's gymnastics team all-around at the Paris Olympics, Simone Biles took to Instagram to celebrate Team USA's win with a pointed comment that many believe was directed at former teammate MyKayla Skinner. In June, a video of MyKayla critiquing the women’s gymnastics team went viral. In the now-deleted video, MyKayla, 27, said "Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and the depth just isn't like what it used to be."
"I just notice, like, I mean, obviously a lot of girls don't work as hard. The girls just don't have the work ethic," she continued in the video at the time.
She later shared a formal apology on social media in which she said that she did not mean to "offend or disrespect any of the athletes." Adding that she took "full responsibility" for her comments, she wrote, "I wish you all the very best in Paris. I will be cheering you all on! Go Team USA!" in the July 6 post.
After Team USA's win, Simone appeared to reference MyKayla's comments again in a celebratory Instagram post.
Simone shared a carousel of images that showed Team USA celebrating their win, and captioned it with, "lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions ❤️ ."
Some noted that Simone's caption was also deserving of a gold medal. Among those who responded to Simone's post was retired gymnast McKayla Maroney, who was a member of the 2012 US team.
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"It doesn’t get more iconic than this," McKayla wrote in response to Simone's post. "She f’d around n found out fr. Feels like I need to apologize just to redeem my first name."
Though many praised Simone for defending her teammates, MyKayla Skinner reportedly did not take Simone's comment well.
On July 31, the day after Simone wrote the Instagram caption, Simone revealed that she has been blocked by MyKayla. "Oop I’ve been blocked ," Simone wrote on X on July 31.
In case there was any confusion about who blocked Simone, her teammate Jordan Chiles cleared things up with a post shared to her Instagram Story.
On her Instagram Story, Jordan shared a photo of Simone's phone with MyKayla's Instagram profile open on it. From Simone's end, MyKayla's profile was blank, indicating that she had been blocked.
"When she blocks Simone," Jordan wrote over the photo.
