The annual ESPY awards went down in Los Angeles Wednesday night, that sports love-fest whose acronym spells out the “Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly Awards” and is sponsored by the ever-woke, formerly sports-oriented network ESPN.
The gymnast who until recently was America’s darling and a symbol of perseverance, 11-time Olympic medal winner Simone Biles, won the award for “Best Championship Performance” for her 2024 Olympics all-around gold medal performance. She couldn’t help but throw in some divisive rhetoric into her acceptance speech, however:
“That was very unexpected, especially in a category of all men. So thank you guys so much,” she said with a laugh.
ESPN of course loved the moment:
Simone Biles is HER ⭐ pic.twitter.com/UlxxGdSryf
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) July 17, 2025
“Simone Biles is HER.” What exactly does that even mean? Clearly, they think demeaning female athletes is something to be celebrated.
It may have seemed like an innocuous joke, and I’m all for defusing conflict with humor, but Biles was obviously throwing shade at former Kentucky swim star Riley Gaines and other advocates of keeping biological males out of women’s sports. Biles famously came out of nowhere in June to slam Gaines on social media for daring to take a stand on the issue by relentlessly pointing out how unfair and anti-women the practice is.
@Riley_Gaines_ You’re truly sick, all of this campaigning because you lost a race. Straight up sore loser. You should be uplifting the trans community and perhaps finding a way to make sports inclusive OR creating a new avenue where trans feel safe in sports. Maybe a transgender… https://t.co/pjpzuZ0AlO
— Simone Biles (@Simone_Biles) June 6, 2025
Related: Riley Gaines Reacts to Simone Biles' Semi-Apology, Schools Her About Fairness in Sports
This is some gross, poisonous stuff masquerading as cutesy awards show banter. The Olympian is implying with her little joke that because she just beat men in a competition, therefore Gaines should have been able to do so in the past, too. But Biles won a vote, not an athletic contest.
The reality is Biles never had to fight for Olympic medals against fully-grown males—while Riley Gaines had to do exactly that in swim competitions against the 6' 1’’ Lia Thomas—and share locker rooms with him as well. While Biles was packing on PDA at the show in her ill-fitting dress with her towering husband, NFL star safety Jonathan Owens, one couldn’t help but wonder how she’d do in athletic competitions against him.
Comedian Shane Gillis also took to the stage at the awards and delivered some savage humor against sacred cows, but he is an entertainer, not a role model for women and girls across the world.
Simone Biles has seemingly sold out her soul for some progressive applause, and of course, she got it in the deep-blue city of Los Angeles and in the embrace of the onetime sports juggernaut but now unwatchable leftist outlet ESPN. We could go on about how wrong it is for men to face females in what is supposed to be female athletic competition, but we’ve been through that drill many times before.
It’s sad to see someone like Biles forever taint her legacy by looking for a few quick likes on social media at the expense of her entire gender.
You, Simone Biles, are no friend of women, and you may just be remembered for that as much as for your gymnastic routines.
Our words can defend girls.
— Jennifer Sey (@JenniferSey) June 7, 2025
Or erase them. @Simone_Biles is choosing to erase them.
At @xx_xyathletics we are part of the cavalry standing up for them and amplifying their voices.
pic.twitter.com/NeY2XgCo1C
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