Simone Biles Reflects On Her Life-Changing Moments

In the very beginning, I didn't even know what GOAT meant.

I remember being at a shoot

and people kept saying, Oh, the GOAT is here.

The GOAT is here.

And I was like, Guys, where's this GOAT at?

And they were like, Oh, it's you.

And I was like, that was kind of weird.

It was just an opinion that people had.

And now you know you have medals and stats to back it up

and I still think it's so weird.

[upbeat music]

Hi, I'm Simone Biles

and today I'm gonna be revisiting photos from my life.

This is Reframed.

In this photo, I am on vault.

I am attempting a Yurchenko double pike,

which no female has ever done

or landed successfully in a competition.

Usually only the men do it.

So I am the only female that has successfully done it

and landed it in a competition.

I think this vault is definitely the most difficult to do

because it's just very precise so that you can land it.

And it's also the scariest, I would say,

because you're rotating two times in the air

in a pike position.

So everything has to be basically perfect.

My ankles are wrapped

because earlier in the season I had landed short

on one of these vaults.

So basically it's taped just for precautionary measures.

My coach is standing there as like a safety blanket as well,

just in case anything goes wrong,

just to be sure he stands there.

So in this photo, it's my husband

and I walking out of our civil ceremony at the courthouse.

We were here in Houston, I believe the courthouse

is called 1919 Courthouse, but is absolutely beautiful.

We figure since we had to get married

before our ceremony in Cabo, that we would do it here.

It's kind of crazy because we had planned it,

but we were so focused on the Cabo wedding

that by the time this came around that week, we were like,

oh my gosh, we don't even have outfits, rings, nothing.

So they came a couple days before

and I actually had to like hunt down the post guy

because we missed the delivery window

because I was still training.

So I actually met him like in a parking lot

to get my package before the wedding.

But it ended up beautiful

and we were both a lot more emotional than we thought it

would be, but I think it's because it was very intimate

and it was something that we did

for us with our family there.

The first time that I met him,

whenever I went back home, I told my friends, I was like,

I think I'm gonna marry him.

And I jokingly said it, but I guess I just knew.

But I think I realized from the very beginning

that he was the one for me, just how he was so like tender,

loving and caring.

Whenever I first met him, he introduced himself as Jonathan.

Everybody calls him J.O.

Whenever his family came over and we were together

or his friends were over, I would say Jonathan.

And like everybody's heads turned

and they're like, Your government name?

I'm pretty much the only person

that actually calls him Jonathan.

It's special.

This moment was very vulnerable.

This was at the 2020 slash 2021 Olympic Games.

I was just telling the girls that I was pulling out

of the rest of the competition

and they're just giving me love

and support as I'm giving back the same,

just letting them know that everything's gonna be okay.

Don't worry about me, you guys are so strong.

You're one of the best in the world.

That's why you guys are here.

Most of the time I describe gymnastics

and competition as like controlled chaos,

but this was like not controlled chaos.

Everything that could

and usually is in our control was out of our control.

There was no audience.

We thrive off of the audience.

We get energy from the audience.

And I also feel like it's just a little bit better

on the pressure when the audience is there.

I had been having problems in training the day before,

but you kind of brush it off

because sometimes what happens when you have the twisties,

it can be a week or longer or even shorter.

Sometimes you can just get lost in the air

and you're like, oh, I'm fine.

But obviously that wasn't the case,

which is why I pulled out of most of these events.

I started to doubt my whole entire gymnastics ability.

And I was also terrified that

what happened in Tokyo would happen again just

because I didn't have the proper help.

So after the Olympic games,

I started therapy almost immediately.

I think therapy has helped save me from past things

that I've gone through, but also it gave me the confidence

and the comfortability to compete again.

'Cause I don't think without therapy,

I would've ever competed again.

I'm pretty sure in the photo I'm receiving one

of the golds from the Olympic games.

It was such a surreal moment.

You know, we trained our whole entire lives

and to get an Olympic gold medal was a huge honor,

a huge achievement for myself.

And so of course, you have

to do the classic metal biting picture

because that's just an Olympic thing to do.

It doesn't taste like anything,

obviously just taste like metal.

But I felt like I was on top of the world.

I definitely think my beam

performance could have been better.

I still thankfully medaled on beam,

but I grabbed the beam, so technically it's close to a fall.

And I thought that I would be out

of medal contention for that.

So to kind of see that score come up

and I was like, oh my gosh, I medaled.

I was just very grateful.

You don't really get to celebrate at least gymnast stone

because our competitions are usually back to back.

But I just remember most of us on that team,

we didn't have the case for it yet.

We're like, we're gonna put it in a sock

and we're gonna sleep with it.

Like we didn't want it out of our sight.

And it was like our baby, we had to protect it.

And I also thought at that point I had achieved

the greatest thing in my life

and I was like, what am I gonna do next if I achieved like

my greatest achievement at 19?

So it was kind of scary.

So in this photo, some former teammates

and I are at the Senate to give statements

and to kind of testify of everything

that we've gone through.

And as stressful

and crazy what we went through, it was good for me

to go and to be able to stand next

to basically my sisters at this point, to just be a voice

for the voiceless and for survivors.

So that's one of the reasons why we went out there

and we did what we did.

It's not something we wanted to do.

I think just the support of one another

and knowing that we're helping so many people out there kind

of lifted our spirits to be strong enough

and brave enough to be able to do what we did.

I don't think any of us really slept that well or anything

because it's stressful and we had to tell our stories again.

And so it's like reliving kind of those

nightmares multiple times.

And I don't think anything can prepare you

for something like this,

because obviously prior I had seen my statement

and read it so many times after writing it,

but just officially saying it out loud to a courtroom,

it was just kind of scarring,

but it was the right thing.

And I also blame an entire system

that enabled and perpetrated his abuse.

I don't think I realized the impact

that I would have speaking up about mental health

until this moment.

And I still think I'm shocked to this day how much

of an impact it is.

So sad, but we did it.

Probably one

of my very first photo shoots that I had done.

This is a band gymnastics back in 2013.

I was still a small name,

not a household name yet, which is nice.

I wish I could go back.

But this girl, she just had to believe in herself

and she just had fun with all the opportunities that came.

At that point, I was only 15 or 16 years old,

training so many hours for just a dream

that I was trying to achieve.

So yeah, that was hard.

And at this point also,

I was the only one in my gym that did this level,

so I just kind of felt alone.

I knew I was never alone whenever I would go to camps

and the elite competitions, but training alone was hard.

Also, what made practice so hard was the option

of trying public school versus homeschool

because you know, I would have to make a lot

of sacrifices at that point.

And then I knew the road would eventually lead

to professional or collegiate gymnastics.

So I just had some pretty big decisions to be made coming up

And I never thought I would be where I am today.

My sister and I just came from foster care

and we just love to have fun, be with our family,

our friends, and we just did gymnastics as a hobby.

So it's crazy to see what it's turned out to be.

My family made so many sacrifices,

but now we get to cherish all of that together.

So it's kind of full circle, but yeah.

[upbeat music]