Simone Biles has once again addressed the backlash directed at her husband, Jonathan Owens.
The gymnast took to her Instagram page to share photos of the Green Bay Packers football player supporting her at the 2024 Core Hydration Gymnastics Classic. “My whole heart,” she wrote in her caption. “The best supporter, I couldn’t ask for a better husband.”
Following the post, some people took to the comments to remind the Olympian that she was the “prize” in their relationship, while claiming that Owens was doing the “bare minimum”. These comments were referencing Owens’ December 2023 appearance on The Pivot podcast where he claimed that he had “no idea” who Biles was upon seeing her dating app, Raya, profile and that he was “the catch” in their relationship over her.
“When she won the Olympics, I was in college and we didn’t have NBC, we didn’t have Olympics channels, and we were in [training] camp [in] late July, early August,” he said at the time. “So I’m not paying attention. I never would’ve had a moment where I would’ve watched [her compete].”
Biles then went on to make a post on her Instagram Stories with a paragraph of text telling her followers to leave Owens alone. “I’m going to quickly address this, the joke was never a joke! Y’all are blatantly being disrespectful to my relationship and my husband. So I’m gonna go ahead and say this one time. Respectfully, f*** off,” she wrote.
“[And] if you keep commenting or tweeting at me I’m just going to block you. Simple as that. And no I don’t need to touch grass or whatever tf y’all suggest...”
The post concluded: “@everyone else that supports us, we love y’all so much.”
Owens also addressed the comments on his own Instagram Stories, where he wrote: “Being fake mad about people y’all don’t know from a can of paint is weirdo behaviour.”
This isn’t the first time Biles has publicly responded to the negative comments made about her husband. Back in April, she appeared on an episode of Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy podcast explaining how she first viewed the comments as funny.
“I thought it was hilarious what people were saying divorce him, divorce him. All of this crazy stuff,” she told Cooper. “And, like, he doesn’t even like to say divorce. So I thought it was hilarious at first, and then they hurt my feelings.”
“And then one night, I broke down and I’m like: ‘Why are you guys talking about my husband like this? Like, you don’t know him. You don’t know who he is. And if anybody’s met him, they know he’s the sweetest guy and will do anything for anybody.’”
The gold medallist explained that she doesn’t take any comments made about her too seriously after years of being in the public eye, but she does get defensive when her loved ones get involved.
“Because for me, it’s like: ‘Talk about me all you want, but don’t come for my family, never,’” she said. “Because I’ve been in the limelight long enough where I can brush things off, have my little powwow about it. You’re not going to know I cried about it, but I be crying about some stuff. But I only cry about it because I can’t clap back. Just know that.”
