McKayla Maroney joins Simone Biles, rips former US Gymnast MyKayla Skinner
There has been a public back and forth between star US gymnast Simone Biles and former Olympian MyKayla Skinner over negative comments Skinner made about the 2024 American team. Now, another former Olympian, McKayla Maroney, has chimed in.
Maroney, who was a vault specialist on the 2012 London team that won gold in the all around and silver in the vault, replied to a post on Instagram where Simone Biles was celebrating the 2024 all around gold for the United States while also ripping Skinner.
“It doesn’t get more ironic than this,” Maroney wrote. “She f’d around n found out fr. Feels like I need to apologize just to redeem my first name.”
Skinner, who was a teammate of Biles’ during the 2020 games and was a part of the all around team that took silver that year, was highly critical of the American team going into these Olympics. In a video that’s since been deleted, she said of this year’s team, “Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and the depth just isn’t like what it used to be. The girls just don’t have the work ethic.”
Four of the 2024 Olympians were teammates of Skinner’s in 2020, including Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey, and Suni Lee. Hezly Rivera is the only newcomer to the team.
The comments were immediately controversial, with Biles publicly saying that not everyone needs a platform. She seemed to hold onto those words from Skinner too and even in the post that Maroney was replying to seemed to take a shot at Skinner.
“Lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions,” Biles wrote.
Skinner did apologize for her comments, writing, “I want to formally apologize to Team USA and to our gymnastic community for my comments during my recent YouTube episodes of the gymnastics Olympic trials. It was not my intention to offend or disrespect any of the athletes or to take away from their hard work. Your hard work and dedication has paid off and I congratulate each and everyone one of you.”
Clearly, for athletes like Maroney, the initial comments are sticking with them more than the apology is, and with the Americans winning the all around gold, it’s clear that those initial comments were unfounded.
For her part, Maroney retired from gymnastics in 2016. Since then, she’s gotten into the music industry and acting. Interestingly, Skinner, who retired following the Tokyo Olympics, won the same silver medal in the vault that Maroney did in the London Games.