Simone Biles says the backlash that her husband, Jonathan Owens, received after his viral interview “really hurt” her.
In the April 17 episode of Alex Cooper’s“Call Her Daddy” podcast, Biles addressed Owens appearance on“The Pivot”podcast in which he seeminglyimplied that he was “the catch” in their relationshipand had no clue who Biles was before they got together.
“I was in the room. I was sitting on the chair. You just couldn’t see me on the videos I was there for the whole entire video,” Biles said, noting that she was “feeling great” in the moment and thought nothing of his remarks.
“I was like, ‘My man just killed that,’” she joked of how he handled his interview.
However, Biles soon found out that the public felt differently, with many reaching out to her to tell her so.
“So, whenever he did that interview, I thought everything was OK. And then I go on Twitter, and everybody’s like, divorce this man, he’s mean. I’m like, he’s the sweetest. He praises the ground that I walk on. Truly, I’ve never met a man like him,” she said.
As for him supposedly not calling her a “catch,” Biles says that fans got it wrong and misinterpreted his words.
“He never said I wasn’t a catch. He said he was a catch because he is,” she explained. “I’ve never met a man like him. A lot of people that meet him are like, ‘Oh my gosh, I want a man like that,’” she said, adding that Owens is “so nice” and “a lot” of girls he interacts with at the gym “love him.”
Biles said that’s why she couldn’t understand why his comments went viral. After taking a moment to think about it, Biles said that social media users were probably “mad that he didn’t include me in the interview.”
But, she noted that it didn’t bother her to not be included in his interview because it was his time to shine.
“He has to have his moments too and I let him have it,” she said.
“It’s like, this is his moment. That’s his interview. What was I supposed to interrupt that interview and be like, ‘Hey, da da da,’” she added.
Despite thinking that the whole controversy was “hilarious,” Biles noted that the public scrutiny did eventually get to her.
“So I thought it was hilarious at first and then they hurt my feelings,” she said.“One night, I broke down and I’m like, why are you guys talking about my husband like this? 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.”
“So, that really hurt that they were talking about my husband like that because for me, it’s like, talk about me all you want, but don’t come from my family. Never,” she said.
What else did Biles say on ‘Call Her Daddy’?
During her interview with Cooper, Biles also talked about the timeshe suffered from the“twisties” while competing at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo in 2021.
The phenomenon occurs when a gymnast loses track of where they are in midair, making it hard to safely land. Ithappened to Bileswhile she performed her vault routine before she landed on the mat.
“So, I open landed like that and as soon as I land, I kind of grin and I’m like, ‘S---,’” she said in a preview clip, provided exclusively to TODAY.com, from her interview on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast. The full episode will be released April 17.
Biles is the most decorated gymnast of all time, butwithdrew from multiple eventsin Tokyo after the twisties episode. She said she believed everybody was going to have it in for her after letting them down.
“America hates me. The world is going to hate me. I can only see what they’re saying on Twitter right now,” she recalled thinking at the time.
“And I salute and I want to run. If I could’ve gotten on a plane and flown home, I would’ve done it. I thought I was going to be banned from America ‘cause that’s what they tell you: ‘Don’t come back if not gold. Gold or bust. Don’t come back.’”
Biles, who’s discussed hermental health strugglesin the wake of what happened in Tokyo, iseyeing a returnto the Olympics this summer in Paris.
Last October, Hoda Kotbasked her on TODAYwhat the odds would be of Biles being part of Team USA in the Olympics if Hoda were to wager $100 on it at that point in time.
“I think you’d be pretty lucky, Hoda,” Biles said before smiling.
A month earlier, in regard to going to the Paris Olympics,Biles said on TODAY, “Right now, I would say that’s the path I would love to go, so I wouldn’t mind if you put it in the ‘yay’ section.”
Biles also said she’s made a point of being more diligent when it comes to looking after herself since Tokyo.
“I think I have to take care of myself a little bit more and listen to my body and making sure that I’m making time for the important things in my life, rather than before, it was just ‘go, go, go,’ and then making time after,” she told TODAY in her September interview.
Drew Weisholtz, TODAY
Joyann Jeffrey, TODAY
