MyKayla Skinner Harmer is issuing a plea to Simone Biles.
The awe-inspiring performance by Simone Biles and the rest of Team USA gymnastics has earned 7 Olympic medals. Three of those are gold.
However, just weeks ago, MyKayla Skinner Harmer, who has technically never made an Olympic team except as an alternate, stirred up controversy by attacking the current gymnasts. Simone Biles clapped back.
Now, MyKayla is asking Simone to rescue her from online backlash. Is she making this all about herself? And is this really Simone’s responsibility?
Remember MyKayla Skinner Harmer?
MyKayla was an alternate at the 2016 Olympics. That year, she became the center of a controversy after editing her photo over Team USA gymnast Gabby Douglas. The accompanying racist emojis didn’t help.
Then, she competed in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics (as an individual), winning a silver medal at the vault.
With the exception of diehard gymnastics fans, many people forgot MyKayla Skinner Harmer until recently. In a now-deleted YouTube video, MyKayla lashed out at Team USA gymnasts.
Do Olympic athletes tend to be ‘lazy’ people?
MyKayla Skinner Harmer accused the Olympic gymnasts representing the United States at the 2024 Paris games of being “lazy” and lacking in athletic aptitude.
“I feel like the talent and the depth just isn’t like what it used to be,” she claimed. “Just notice like, I mean, obviously a lot of girls don’t work as hard. The girls just don’t have the work ethic.” That seems to be patently untrue.
There was also an implication by MyKayla that safety rules, which came to being after the many crimes of Dr. Nassar, were in some way making the team worse. It is difficult to understand why MyKayla would take these positions, or what she hoped to gain by sharing them.
Simone Biles took the high road
For her part, Simone Biles’ clapback was mild. She didn’t call out MyKayla Skinner Harmer by name, for example.
Instead, she offered a tongue-in-cheek Instagram caption under photos of herself and other gymnasts for Team USA.
“Lack of talent, lazy, Olympic champions,” she described. Other Olympians, past and present (and notably McKayla Maroney)
Now, MyKayla Skinner Harmer is begging Simone Biles to ask fans and followers to leave her alone
On Tuesday, August 6, MyKayla took to Instagram to address Simone Biles directly. Though the women have certainly met back at the Tokyo games, one can only assume that they do not have each other’s contact information.
MyKayla lamented what she calls a “wave of hateful comments” that have included alleged “death threats.”
She begged: “Simone, I am asking you directly and publicly, to please put a stop to this.”
MyKayla Skinner Harmer would like for the backlash to end
“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,” MyKayla Skinner Harmer begged.
She said of herself and her family: “We’ve been hurt and attacked in ways that I am certain you never intended.”
We, too, are certain that Simone Biles did not intend anything of the sort. Yet it sounds like MyKayla believes that SImone is somehow responsible for it.
She alleges that there have been threats
“Watching people cheer on the bullying — which has led to threats of physical harm to me, my husband, and our daughter — is disgusting,” MyKayla Skinner Harmer expressed. “So please at this point, I’m just asking for it to just stop for the sake of my family because enough is enough.”
She also tried to walk back previous comments, emphasizing: “I know these women are incredible — the very best of the best — and almost all of them are my former teammates who I have enjoyed very much cheering on the last few years.”
“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,” she lamented.
It’s unclear how this could be Simone’s fault
“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,” MyKayla Skinner Harmer alleged.
“Hate that includes death threats to me, my family, and even my agent,” she continued. “My family and my friends don’t deserve to be caught in the crossfire here. They’ve done nothing.”
We certainly hope that any threats of death or violence cease. While it’s difficult to see how any of that is Simone Biles’ business, let alone responsibility, threats are not an appropriate response.