At 24 years of age, Simone Biles is without question a sports legend, possibly the greatest
gymnast of all time.
But the road to her success was lined with tragedy and hardship.
These are the tragic details about her life.
Simone Biles' journey to athletic greatness started with a difficult childhood.
While her life stabilized when she was adopted by her grandfather and his second wife, the
gymnast has opened up about the hardships she faced living with her biological mother,
Shanon.
During Biles' childhood, Shanon struggled with drug and alcohol addiction, and her four
children were put in the foster care system when Simone was a toddler.
Eventually, a neighbor told children's services about the four kids, and Simone and her siblings
stayed together in the foster system.
While she said she didn't remember much about her time in foster care, she distinctly remembered
knowing that she and her siblings had been separated from their biological mother, and
thought it would be only a matter of time until they went back to live with her -- but
it never happened.
In the third episode of Facebook Watch docuseries "Simone vs Herself," Biles opened up about
these tragic formative experiences with and without her troubled mother.
Remembering a street cat that roamed around the area, Biles recalled noticing that her
mom would make a point to put out food for the cat, but couldn't do the same for her
own kids.
"I would be so hungry, and they would feed this cat and I'm like, 'Where the heck is
my food?'"
Simone Biles' mother told the Daily Mail in 2016,
"It was hard to give up my kids but I had to do what I had to, I wasn't able to care
for them."
In 2016, Shanon told TMZ that she has been sober since 2007.
Simone Biles doesn't have a relationship with her biological father, Kelvin Clemons.
Years before Biles was born on March 14, 1997, Clemons had amassed a frightening array of
criminal charges and arrests, according to Radar Online.
He pled guilty to such charges as aggravated burglary, grand theft auto, and spent time
in jail on multiple occasions.
After Simone was born, Clemons was arrested again after being charged with domestic violence
against Shanon Biles, but according to Radar Online, the charges were dismissed.
The outlet noted that he was also arrested for assaulting a girlfriend and spent 180
days in a correctional facility.
Meanwhile, Simone's brother Tevin Biles-Thomas has faced legal issues of his own.
As CNN reported, he was arrested in 2019 on charges of murder, voluntary manslaughter,
felonious assault and perjury in connection with a fatal shooting in Cleveland, Ohio.
Following her brother's 2019 arrest, the elite athlete released a statement on Twitter.
She wrote,
"My heart aches for everyone involved, especially for the victims and their families.
There is nothing that I can say that will heal anyone's pain, but I do want to express
my sincere condolences to everyone affected by this terrible tragedy.
I ask everyone to please respect my family's privacy as we deal with our pain."
Two years later, due to lack of evidence, the case was dismissed and Biles-Thomas was
acquitted of all charges in June 2021.
Like many women, Simone Biles has endured vicious body-shaming comments, with criticism
often focusing on her muscular build.
In an interview with NBC Sports, she recalled an incident in 2013 in which she overheard
a coach describe her as "too fat."
She shared,
"I feel like I'm a very petite young girl and so to hear that at such a very young age,
it just kind of shocked me."
Not only was Simone body-shamed, but she has also been subjected to racist comments.
One, which was caught on tape, happened when the elite athlete was 16 and competing on
a world level.
As USA Today recounted, Italian gymnast Carlotta Ferlito remarked in a video interview that
her team should, quote, "also paint our skin black so then we can win, too."
The comment was outrageously offensive, and Biles' grandfather, Ron Biles, wasn't having
it, telling USA Today that the comment was out of line.
But though the comment bothered Biles at the time, it didn't take long until her head was
fully back in the game.
Simone Biles' ADHD diagnosis and treatment made headlines in 2016.
Although the phenom is comfortable with having ADHD and taking meds for it, she hadn't said
much about it until hackers found their way into the World Anti-Doping Agency's database.
After the hack, information on the medication she takes was revealed, and some tried to
suggest something untoward was going on with her medications.
As ESPN noted,
"The leaked medical records revealed that Biles takes Ritalin, a stimulant commonly
used to treat ADHD.
The hackers accused her of using an 'illicit psycho-stimulant' while competing, but USA
Gymnastics confirmed that Biles had been approved for a therapeutic-use exemption."
In other words, there wasn't an issue.
Did Biles get rattled when her medical records were made public?
Nope.
As ESPN cleverly reported, she, quote, "flipped the script" to speak out on Twitter about
the truth.
In her statement about the incident, the then-19-year-old said she began taking ADHD meds at a young
age and had continued into young adulthood.
At the same time, she wrote,
"Please know, I believe in clean sport, have always followed the rules, and will continue
to do so as fair play is critical to sport and is very important to me."
Biles also addressed the scrutiny of her medications head-on, tweeting,
"Having ADHD, and taking medicine for it is nothing to be ashamed of [and] nothing that
I'm afraid to let people know."
Early in her career, Simone Biles trained with two distinctly different coaches — one
fun-loving, and one who was evidently the opposite.
This change was drastic, especially for the young athlete who wanted to please at all
costs.
Her at-home coach was Aimee Boorman, a gentle force who was able to get Biles to the top
of her sport.
In addition to being a capable instructor, Boorman has also been described as a professional
trainer who believes athletes should feel free to have a good time.
After Biles became a contender, she also began to go to Károlyi Ranch for their intense
training programs.
The young athlete would travel 50 miles away from her Houston home to be coached by Márta
Károlyi, whom The Guardian describes as "a Romanian-American known for her unforgiving
attitude and the inculcation."
"Marta has a rule, that's like 'Marta time,' that if she tells you 'Ok, lunch is at 12:30,'
you have to go down at 12:15 because Marta rule is 15 minutes early."
Biles illustrated these traits when she wrote in her memoir, "Courage to Soar," that Károlyi
had once told her she wasn't supposed to "cheer for her peers at competitions."
Beyond that, Biles was told that when she trained she was also supposed to suppress
expressions of joy — including laughter.
As Biles pointed out, she and her fellow gymnasts were effectively not allowed to show that
they were enjoying themselves in any way during competition.
After Aimee Boorman left Biles' city of Houston for a job in Florida in 2017, Biles began
training with coaches Cecile and Laurent Landi.
Their style of training has been described by The Washington Post as being similar to
Boorman's, as opposed to the cold and controlled methods ascribed to Márta Károlyi.
Not long after Cecile and Laurent Landi began to work with Simone Biles, they noticed a
sharp change in both her athletic performance and her personality.
The elite athlete had recently gone public as one of the many gymnasts who was sexually
assaulted by Team USA physician Dr. Larry Nassar.
Announcing that truth to the world helped cause a reckoning in both USA Gymnastics,
and in herself.
One morning, according to The Washington Post, Cecile discovered Biles curled up in the locker
room and crying.
Although Biles told her coach that she would be fine, she clearly wasn't, so the coaches
advised her to take some time off.
Biles told The Washington Post that her coaches were able to look out for her during this
time in ways that she couldn't, and if that meant easing up on practice, then that's what
she needed to do.
Biles explained,
"Gymnastics is supposed to be your safe place, but some days it wasn't.
They understood that.
So, to keep me safe, they'd just say: 'You need a mental break.
Just go home and relax.'"
After Simone Biles and many others came forward with her accusations against Dr. Larry Nassar,
he was convicted of molesting members of the USA Gymnastics team.
As CNN reported on January 24, 2018, Judge Rosemarie Aquilina gave the team doctor 40
to 175 years behind bars, stating, "I've just signed your death warrant."
After all she has endured, Biles continues to believe in gymnastics.
Speaking with The Guardian in 2019, she shared,
"I feel like, if I have kids, I'll probably enroll them, in spite of the horror stuff
that happened to me.
Because I know how much joy the sport has brought me."
She also shared that she's sought therapy to help deal with times in which she didn't
want to set foot in a gym, due to what she'd experienced in the sport in the past.
But Biles isn't letting anything stop her.
As she put it,
"Am I going to let that keep me from my passion, and the goals that I still have?
It's just another bump you have to get over."
If you or anyone you know has been a victim of sexual assault, help is available.
Visit the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network website or contact RAINN's National Helpline
at 1-800-656-HOPE (4673).