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)
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