Winning five gold medals at the 2016 Olympics and being celebrated as one of the greatest gymnasts of all time, Simone Biles is a fierce competitor used to accolades. But being such a visible female athlete, she also has become all too familiar with criticism about her body, clothes, and her life choices.
As part of natural cosmetic company SK-II’s #NoCompetition campaign, Biles took to Instagram to denounce “a growing competition that has nothing to do with performance itself,” namely beauty standards.
Noting that constant commentary on parts of her body or outfits has gotten her “down at times,” the gymnast declared she was through with “competing VS. beauty standard and the toxic culture of trolling when others feel as though their expectations are not met.”
The 22-year-old American gymnast and hopeful for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics appears in the campaign alongside other female athletes, such as Hawaiian surfer Mahina Maeda and Chinese swimmer Liu Xiang, who are demanding to be judged on their performance not their appearance.
As SK-II describes its campaign against beauty standards on YouTube featuring many female athletes who will be competing in their various sports at the summer games in 2020, “These toxic competitions dictate how we should look, feel and act, creating pressure that hold us back in our daily lives.”
Biles is no stranger to having people question her appearance or actions on social media. In December 2017, she was invited to be a honorary cheerleader by the NFL’s Houston Texans and was criticized for having messy hair in a post-practice picture she shared on Twitter. Several people trolled her for taking a picture without taking the time to do her hair.
After the game on Dec. 10, 2017, a picture of Biles and her boyfriend Stacy Ervin received disparaging Instagram comments about her body shape. The gold medalist responded with a tweet calling out the hypocrisy of commenters who shamed her for having messy hair. “Do you look perfect ALL the time? everything in perfect order?”
Many of her followers came to her defense, complimenting her on her natural beauty and questioning the motives of those who had trolled her.
Being in the limelight so often following her record performance at the 2016 Olympics also led some to troll her not only for her appearance but also about her taking a vacation with her family to Hawaii. When Biles posted a picture of herself on Instagram with her “resting beach face,” an angry commenter wrote: “Seems like you’ve partied non stop for a year,” adding hateful hashtags “trash” and “unfollow.”
Responding to the user, Biles wrote on Twitter, “Talk to me when you train for 14 years and earn 5 Olympic medals ... my year off is well deserved.” She later shared the exchange with her followers, explaining, “Comments like this have me shook.”
Yet, even her recent Instagram post taking aim at beauty standards had its share of critics, this time about the fact that her words were associated with a luxury cosmetics company’s ad campaign. As one Instagram user wrote, “I was loving this message but was slightly disappointed that it ended as an endorsement for a beauty product that costs $100/bottle.”
Regardless of the commercial aspects of product endorsement, which have long been part of how professional athletes make a living, there is little doubt that Biles meant what she wrote, especially given her previous brushes with online trolls. As the gymnast explained in an interview with Elle, “[The public] is always commenting on what we look like, our weight, our hair. Then, there are opinions on how big our shoulders are. Without those big shoulders, we won’t be able to do what we do, or be as powerful.”
And as the Olympics approach, Biles will certainly be back in competition as she attempts to add to her already historic achievements. This time, the judgement will be about her performance—just the way she likes it.
