Simone Biles, Vanity Fair's February cover star, reflects on pivotal moments in her life and career. From her first gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics to her emotional wedding with husband Jonathan Owens, the actress gives her reframed perspective on how the moments defined her.
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00:00 In the very beginning, I didn't even know what "goat" meant.
00:02 I remember being at a shoot and people kept saying,
00:05 "Oh, the goat is here. The goat is here."
00:07 And I was like, "Guys, where's this goat at?"
00:09 And they were like, "Oh, it's you."
00:10 And I was like, "That's kind of weird."
00:12 It was just an opinion that people had.
00:14 And now, you know, you have medals and stats to back it up.
00:17 And I still think it's so weird.
00:19 ♪♪
00:26 Hi, I'm Simone Biles,
00:27 and today I'm gonna be revisiting photos from my life.
00:31 This is "Reframed."
00:32 ♪♪
00:34 In this photo, I am on vault.
00:37 I am attempting a Yurchenko double pike,
00:39 which no female has ever done
00:41 or landed successfully in a competition.
00:44 Usually only the men do it,
00:45 so I am the only female that has successfully done it
00:48 and landed it in a competition.
00:50 I think this vault is definitely the most difficult to do
00:54 because it's just very precise so that you can land it,
00:58 and it's also the scariest, I would say.
01:00 Because you're rotating two times in the air
01:03 in a pike position,
01:04 so everything has to be basically perfect.
01:07 My ankles are wrapped because earlier in the season,
01:11 I had landed short on one of these vaults.
01:14 So basically, it's taped just for precautionary measures.
01:17 My coach is standing there as, like, a safety blanket,
01:20 as well, just in case anything goes wrong,
01:23 just to be sure he stands there.
01:25 ♪♪
01:27 So, in this photo, it's my husband and I
01:30 walking out of our civil ceremony at the courthouse.
01:33 We were here in Houston.
01:34 I believe the courthouse is called 1919 Courthouse,
01:37 but it's absolutely beautiful.
01:39 We figured, since we had to get married
01:41 before our ceremony in Cabo, that we would do it here.
01:44 It's kind of crazy because we had planned it,
01:46 but we were so focused on the Cabo wedding
01:50 that by the time this came around that week,
01:53 we were like, "Oh, my gosh.
01:54 We don't even have outfits, rings, nothing."
01:56 So they came a couple days before,
01:58 and I actually had to, like, hunt down the post guy
02:03 because we missed the delivery window
02:05 because I was still training.
02:07 So I actually met him, like, in a parking lot
02:10 to get my package before the wedding.
02:12 But it ended up beautiful,
02:13 and we were both a lot more emotional
02:15 than we thought it would be,
02:16 but I think it's because it was very intimate,
02:18 and it was something that we did for us
02:20 with our family there.
02:21 The first time that I met him,
02:24 whenever I went back home, I told my friends,
02:27 I was like, "I think I'm gonna marry him."
02:28 And I jokingly said it, but I guess I just knew.
02:31 But I think I realized from the very beginning
02:33 that he was the one for me,
02:35 just how he was so, like, tender, loving, and caring.
02:38 Whenever I first met him,
02:40 he introduced himself as Jonathan.
02:42 Everybody calls him J-O.
02:43 Whenever his family came over and we were together
02:46 or his friends were over, I would say, "Jonathan."
02:49 And, like, everybody's heads turned,
02:51 and they're like, "Your government name?"
02:53 I'm pretty much the only person
02:54 that actually calls him Jonathan.
02:56 It's special.
02:57 This moment was very vulnerable.
03:03 This was at the 2020/2021 Olympic Games.
03:06 I was just telling the girls that I was pulling out
03:09 of the rest of the competition,
03:11 and they're just giving me love and support
03:14 as I'm giving back the same.
03:16 Just letting them know that everything's gonna be okay.
03:18 Don't worry about me.
03:19 You guys are so strong.
03:22 You're one of the best in the world.
03:23 That's why you guys are here.
03:24 Most of the time, I describe gymnastics and competition
03:28 as, like, controlled chaos.
03:29 But this was, like, not controlled chaos.
03:31 Everything that could and usually is in our control
03:35 was out of our control.
03:36 There was no audience.
03:37 We thrive off of the audience.
03:40 We get energy from the audience.
03:42 And I also feel like it's just a little bit better
03:44 under pressure when the audience is there.
03:47 I had been having problems in training the day before.
03:51 But you kind of brush it off,
03:52 because sometimes what happens when you have the twisties,
03:56 it can be a week or longer or even shorter.
04:00 Sometimes you can just get lost in the air,
04:01 and you're like, "Oh, I'm fine."
04:03 But obviously that wasn't the case,
04:05 which is why I pulled out of most of these events.
04:07 I started to doubt my whole entire gymnastics ability.
04:12 And I was also terrified that what happened in Tokyo
04:15 would happen again.
04:16 Just because I didn't have the proper help.
04:18 So after the Olympic Games,
04:20 I started therapy almost immediately.
04:22 I think therapy has helped save me
04:25 from past things that I've gone through.
04:28 But also it gave me the confidence
04:30 and the comfortability to compete again.
04:33 'Cause I don't think without therapy,
04:34 I would have ever competed again.
04:36 I'm pretty sure in the photo,
04:39 I'm receiving one of the golds from the Olympic Games.
04:43 It was such a surreal moment.
04:44 You know, we trained our whole entire lives.
04:46 And to get an Olympic gold medal was a huge honor,
04:49 a huge achievement for myself.
04:52 And so of course you have to do
04:53 the classic medal biting picture,
04:56 because that's just an Olympic thing to do.
04:58 It doesn't taste like anything,
04:59 obviously, just dayside medal.
05:01 But I felt like I was on top of the world.
05:03 I definitely think my beam performance
05:05 could have been better.
05:06 I still thankfully medaled on beam,
05:09 but I grabbed the beam,
05:10 so technically it's close to a fall.
05:12 And I thought that I would be
05:13 out of medal contention for that.
05:16 So to kind of see that score come up,
05:17 and I was like, "Oh my gosh, I medaled."
05:19 I was just very grateful.
05:21 You don't really get to celebrate at least gymnast zone
05:23 because our competitions are usually back to back.
05:26 But I just remember most of us on that team,
05:28 we didn't have the case for it yet.
05:29 We're like, "We're gonna put it in a sock
05:31 and we're gonna sleep with it."
05:32 Like we didn't want it out of our sight.
05:35 And it was like our baby, we had to protect it.
05:38 And I also thought at that point,
05:39 I had achieved the greatest thing in my life.
05:42 And I was like, "What am I gonna do next
05:44 if I achieve my greatest achievement at 19?"
05:48 So it was kind of scary.
05:49 So in this photo, some former teammates and I
05:53 are at the Senate to give statements
05:55 and to kind of testify of everything
05:58 that we've gone through.
05:59 And as stressful and crazy what we went through,
06:04 it was good for me to go in to be able to stand
06:08 next to basically my sisters at this point,
06:10 to just be a voice for the voiceless and for survivors.
06:14 So that's one of the reasons why we went out there
06:16 and we did what we did.
06:18 It's not something we wanted to do.
06:19 I think just the support of one another
06:22 and knowing that we're helping so many people out there
06:25 kind of lifted our spirits to be strong enough
06:28 and brave enough to be able to do what we did.
06:30 I don't think any of us really slept that well or anything
06:34 because it's stressful and we had to tell our stories again.
06:37 And so it's like reliving kind of those nightmares
06:40 multiple times.
06:41 And I don't think anything can prepare you
06:43 for something like this because obviously prior,
06:46 I had seen my statement and read it so many times
06:49 after writing it, but just officially saying it out loud
06:53 to a courtroom, it was just kind of scarring,
06:57 but it was the right thing.
06:58 - And I also blame an entire system
07:04 that enabled and perpetrated his abuse.
07:07 - I don't think I realized the impact that I would have
07:11 speaking up about mental health until this moment.
07:15 And I still think I'm shocked to this day
07:18 how much of an impact it is.
07:20 So sad, but we did it.
07:23 Probably one of my very first photo shoots that I had done.
07:29 This is at Bannon Gymnastics.
07:30 Back in 2013, I was still a small name,
07:33 not a household name yet, which is nice.
07:35 I wish I could go back, but this girl,
07:38 she just had to believe in herself
07:40 and she just had fun with all the opportunities that came.
07:43 At that point, I was only 15 or 16 years old,
07:47 training so many hours for just a dream
07:49 that I was trying to achieve.
07:51 So yeah, that was hard.
07:52 And at this point also, I was the only one in my gym
07:55 that did this level.
07:56 So I just kind of felt alone.
07:59 I knew I was never alone whenever I would go to camps
08:01 and the elite competitions, but training alone was hard.
08:04 Also, what made practice so hard
08:08 was the option of trying public school versus homeschool,
08:13 because I would have to make a lot of sacrifices
08:16 at that point.
08:18 And then I knew the road would eventually lead
08:20 to professional or collegiate gymnastics.
08:24 So I just had some pretty big decisions
08:26 to be made coming up.
08:29 (upbeat music)
08:30 I never thought I would be where I am today.
08:32 My sister and I just came from foster care
08:35 and we just love to have fun,
08:37 be with our family, our friends.
08:39 And we just did gymnastics as a hobby.
08:42 So it's crazy to see what it's turned out to be.
08:45 My family made so many sacrifices,
08:47 but now we get to cherish all of that together.
08:49 So it's kind of full circle, but yeah.
08:52 (upbeat music)
08:55 (upbeat music)