MyKayla Skinner Tearfully Pleads Simone Biles To Help Stop Cyberbullying Over Work Ethic Comments

MyKayla Skinner is asking Simone Biles for help. The Olympic gymnast shared a tearful plea to her former teammate amid the continued fallout over MyKayla’s controversial comments about Team USA. In an emotional Instagram video on Aug. 6, MyKayla told followers that she and her family have experienced death threats over a now-deleted video in which she said that, except for Simone, the American gymnasts competing at the Paris Games lack the “talent,” “depth” and “work ethic” of previous teams. MyKayla previously apologized following uproar over her remarks and said her words were misunderstood, but the backlash was reignited when Team USA took home the gold in the all-around finals. Simone appeared to call out the situation when captioning an Instagram photo of the athletes celebrating, writing in her caption, “lack of talent, lazy, Olympic champions.” Though Jordan Chiles later followed up with a screenshot indicating that MyKayla had blocked Simone on social media, MyKayla addressed the icon directly and asked her to tell fans to turn down the negativity for the sake of her safety.