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The online beef between Simone Biles and her former teammate MyKayla Skinner seems to be intensifying following Biles’ triumph at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Biles, now the most decorated U.S. gymnast in Olympic history, revealed Wednesday that Skinner appeared to have blocked her on Instagram.
“oop I’ve been blocked,” she wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Though Biles didn’t mention Skinner by name, her teammate Jordan Chiles posted a screenshot of Skinner’s Instagram profile ― which reads “No posts yet” ― to her own Instagram Stories.
“When she blocks Simone,” Chiles wrote in the caption.
The drama between Biles and Skinner, who nabbed a silver medal at the 2020 Tokyo Games, erupted last month after Skinner offered a less-than-complimentary take on the current U.S. women’s gymnastics team.
“Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and the depth just isn’t what it used to be,” she said in a since-deleted YouTube video, portions of which can be found here. “Obviously, a lot of girls don’t work as hard … The girls just don’t have the work ethic.”
Days later, Biles offered what seemed to be a reaction to Skinner’s comments.
“not everyone needs a mic and a platform,” she wrote on Threads.
Patrick Smith via Getty Images
Not long after that, Skinner posted a short video to her Instagram Stories in which she claimed her comments about Team USA had been “misinterpreted.”
“A lot of the stuff that I was talking about wasn’t always necessarily about the current team, because I love and support all the girls that made it, and I’m so proud of them,” she said in the clip. “I love those girls and I’m seriously so happy for them, so I would never do anything to make them feel otherwise.”
She later offered a more formal apology in a statement to People and other media outlets.
Despite Skinner’s attempts at backpedaling, her remarks have continued to infiltrate some of the ongoing Olympics discourse.
Immediately after Team USA’s triumph in the women’s gymnastics team event, Biles shared a photo of herself with Chiles, Jade Carey, Suni Lee and Hezly Rivera holding their gold medals on Instagram.
“lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions,” she wrote in the caption.
Among those to comment on the photo was former Olympic gymnast McKayla Maroney, known globally for having inspired the “not impressed” meme.
“It doesn’t get more iconic than this,” Maroney wrote. “She f’ed around n found out fr. Feels like I need to apologize just to redeem my first name.”