Jonas Harmer and MyKayla Skinner Courtesy of MyKayla Skinner/Instagram
MyKayla Skinner’s husband, Jonas Harmer, has her back amid her drama with fellow gymnast Simone Biles.
“Proud of you for apologizing when you did, staying quiet when you did, and now standing up for yourself,” Harmer wrote in the comments section of Skinner’s Tuesday, August 6, Instagram video, in which she addressed her recent comments about the U.S. women’s gymnastics team. “You’re the strongest person I know!”
Skinner and Harmer tied the knot in 2019 and went on to welcome their daughter, Charlotte, in September 2023.
Skinner’s latest social media post was her second acknowledgement of the negative comments she made about this year’s Olympic gymnasts team in a since-deleted YouTube video. “Besides Simone, I feel like that talent and the depth just isn’t what it used to be,” she said in June. “I mean, obviously, a lot of girls don’t work as hard. The girls just don’t have the work ethic.”
Courtesy of MyKayla Skinner/Instagram Olympic gymnast MyKayla Skinner and husband Jonas Harmer’s relationship has been going strong since college. The pair met when Skinner was a student at the University of Utah and Harmer was studying at nearby Brigham Young University. They announced their engagement in October 2019 and tied the knot that November. After […]
Skinner also alleged that the U.S. Center for SafeSport, an organization working to prevent abuse against athletes, has made training more difficult because coaches can’t “get on athletes” as much as they once could.
In a subsequent Instagram Story post, Skinner clarified that her initial comments were “more about going back into my own gym and the work ethic is different compared to when we were doing gymnastics in the Márta [Károlyi] era.” Skinner previously trained under Károlyi, 81, who was the former national team coordinator for USA Gymnastics. Károlyi was accused of forcing athletes to follow strict rules without voicing objection in a 2018 Associated Press éxposé.
On Tuesday, Skinner stated that she takes “100 percent responsibility for poorly articulating the point I was trying to make,” adding, “The last thing I wanted was to cause harm or offend our U.S. Olympic team.”
MyKayla Skinner and Simone Biles Jamie Squire/Getty Images
Skinner said she followed up her comments by reaching out to the women’s gymnastics team members. Biles, 27, was the only one to respond to Skinner, who said she “told me that she was proud of me.”
As a result, Biles’ shade toward Skinner in an Instagram post celebrating the group’s team event gold medal took Skinner by surprise. “Lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions ❤️🥇🇺🇸,” Biles captioned pics of herself and teammates Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera after their win on July 30.
Simone Biles and MyKayla Skinner had a history long before the retired gymnast’s controversial comments about Team USA’s work ethic. “Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and the depth just isn’t what it used to be. I mean, obviously, a lot of girls don’t work as hard. The girls just don’t have the work […]
“If Simone truly believes that I called our team lazy and lacking talent and if that’s really how she feels, I am really heartbroken over it,” Skinner continued in her Tuesday video. “But not just heartbroken because it isn’t what I feel or even how I previously said, but because Simone’s latest post and others that followed it fueled another wave of hateful comments, DMs, articles and emails. Hate that includes death threats to me my family and even my agent. My family and my friends don’t deserve to be caught in the crossfire here. They’ve done nothing.”
Directly addressing Biles, Skinner asked her former teammate to ask her followers to stop harassing her and her family. “You have been an incredible champion for mental health awareness and a lot of people need your help now,” she stated. “We’ve been attacked in ways that I’m certain you never intended. Your performance, the team’s performance and the Olympics in general should be a time that we support one another.”
Simone Biles Kristy Sparow/Getty Images
In addition to fans sharing their thoughts on Skinner and Biles’ drama, several Team US gymnasts have also joined the conversation. Reposting Biles’ July 30 Instagram post via her Instagram Story, Lee, 21, wrote, “Put a finger down if simone biles just ended you ✋🏼.”
Olympian McKayla Maroney, meanwhile, commented on Biles’ post, “It doesn’t get more iconic than this. She f’d around n found out fr. Feels like I need to apologize just to redeem my first name.”
Simone Biles and her Team USA gymnast peers had a full house of support during their all-around qualifiers at the Paris Olympics — and the crowds have grown with every competition. The first round of women’s competition began on Sunday, July 28, in which 27-year-old Biles finished with a score of 59.566 despite a calf […]
Skinner later blocked Biles on social media. “When she blocks Simone,” Chiles, 23, captioned a July 31 Instagram Story pic of Skinner’s blank Instagram profile on Biles’ phone.
Biles — who took home four medals in Paris — addressed the situation in an interview with People on Thursday, August 6, noting how critical it was for the younger generation to defend themselves. “It’s important because you have to teach them to use their voices. And if not, you’re a voice for the voiceless, which is OK,” she told the outlet. “I just felt like it was right in that moment to stand up for them, because they’re so young and they haven’t fully stood in their power yet.”
