Fans Furious, Tear Into Simone Biles' Husband Over 'Odd' Behavior After Her Olympic Win - 'Give the Medal Back'
Here’s a pro tip for everyone dating or married to an Olympic athlete: If they win gold and you aren’t on a team with them, don’t be seen wearing it.
Jonathan Owens, a safety for the Chicago Bears, learned this the hard way.
Sure, Owens may be famous in his own world. How many of us get to be an NFL player, after all? Even if he only does have two career sacks and one interception, that’s still way more than 99.9 percent of the American population.
And yet, he’s still not his wife — because his wife, for the unaware, is Simone Biles.
Biles, who was tied for the most Olympic medals for an American gymnast, officially became the most decorated gymnastics medalist in U.S. Olympic history after the American team won a gold medal Tuesday. This was ahead of the individual events, which began on Thursday.
The team called it a “redemption tour” after a disappointing showing at the pandemic-delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but it could also be called the same for Biles — who withdrew from those games after a motion-control condition, commonly known as “the twisties,” affected her.
“I started off with therapy this morning which was super-exciting. I told my therapist I was feeling calm and ready,” Biles, now 27, said at a post-medal media briefing, according to the New York Post. “I was like ‘Please, no flashbacks or anything.’
“But after I finished on vault, I was so relieved. As soon as I landed my vault, I thought, ‘Oh yeah, we’re going to do this.’”
When she said “we,” however, what she meant was “her team.” Not “my husband and I.”
Leave that to Jonathan Owens, who posted this to Instagram hours later:
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“Witnessing history every time you step on the mat,” Owens said in a caption to a photo of him wearing his wife’s gold medal, along with a heart-eyed and fire emoji.
“Congrats baby on becoming the most decorated American gymnast in Olympic history!!!! Just wow!!!! 8 of them!!!!! So thankful i was there to see it,” he continued.
You can guess how this went over in the comments section:
“That’s Simone’s gold medal you’re holding, not yours my guy,” one commenter said. “But why are you wearing it? How odd,” another added.
“There’s something very unsettling about you wearing her medal. Seems off. Give it back to her immediately,” yet another wrote.
“lol mr I’m the prize. Holding the prize like it’s his,” another quipped.
To be fair, Biles seems to have endorsed this, having commented: “my whole heart. i love you” and “means the world you’re here.”
However, “odd” and “off” are the right words here.
Again, I have never intercepted a pass nor made a sack in the NFL. I have never won an Olympic medal, either. I don’t know the protocol when someone who’s done the first is married to someone who’s done the second. And yes, there were those in the comments section supporting her, and the comments section is always a divisive place.
However, if you’re kind of a relative unknown within even the pro sports field and you have less sacks and interceptions — despite the fact that this is what safeties, well, do — than your wife has gold medals representing her country, maybe there’s a kind of, I dunno, unspoken etiquette here.
The comments section seems to have gotten this right, for once, and are at least debating the merits of this. As well they should. He did nothing more than marry greatness, and posting pictures of himself wearing her gold medals — supportive as he no doubt may be as a husband — doesn’t feel right, especially as another athlete in a different field.
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