Victim of Body Shaming, Jordan Chiles Recalls Unfair Treatment During Gymnastics Career’s Early Days: “Didn’t Know What to Do”

“I didn’t think people around me wanted to see this beautiful Black girl in a [leotard] anymore.” When Jordan Chiles was 17, she had contemplated quitting the sport forever. She was done with her former coach calling her ‘double head’ because her hair was apparently too big. And with others questioning her dark skin. Unfortunately, these weren’t the only instances! As she faced disparity too. We now know this was a recurrent nightmare that plagued her career for long. But do we know what she was feeling in that moment? Probably not! But now the word is out!

Jordan Chiles first tumbled on the gym mats when she was just 6. But age didn’t restrict the toddler from noticing that all wasn’t right. In 2024, Chiled narrated an incident to Teen Vogue, when “Some lady in the crowd basically was like, ‘She doesn’t deserve to be on the floor. She doesn’t even look like anybody else.” Well, Chiles was so young when this occurred that her mother had to later explain the happening to her. Unlike this, some other things were noticed by Chiles firsthand. For example, as a young gymnast, she’d already gotten an inkling that her ‘skin’ was already affecting the way the judges were perceiving her.

Yes! Speaking to PEOPLE exclusively in an interview aired on March 1 in the pretext of her upcoming book release ‘I’m That Girl’ in just three days, Jordan Chiles detailed how her younger self faced disparity in judgment because of her skin. “Everything was different,” she said. “[Judges] didn’t know what to do with [me] because it was like, ‘She’s talented, yes, but she’s curvy,’ or people would tell me that I ‘look like a man’ or ‘you shouldn’t be here’ or ‘you don’t deserve to be in the sport.'” Clearly, it wasn’t just her skin but also her body that was causing this differential treatment.

What Jordan Chiles basically means is that it was the judging parameter that first flashed a huge concern in front of her. She questioned if she would ever become “a typical athlete” because she felt that even when she was doing the same routine as others on the mat, her scores were different. This to her probably meant that her skin color and her body were given more weightage than her sheer gymnastics talent. On top of that, the painful comments about her looks, making her a possible ill-fit for the sport, made things worse for her.

Well, it’s unfortunate that Jordan Chiles feels that she has been repeatedly subjected to the same unfair pattern over and over again. If you remember, even after her Paris Olympics bronze medal controversy, racist comments were hurled at her. To the extent that she had to take a mental health break from social media, while her mother chimed in to point out the disheartening comments she was still getting in these modern times.

And yes, things like these do take a huge toll on the athlete. As it did to Jordan Chiles. But, there were instances when she decided to turn this into fuel. And that’s how Chiles began her journey of empowering women of color.

Jordan Chiles’ journey to being unapologetically herself

In 2018, Jordan Chiles joined hands with Brown Girls Do Gymnastics, a nonprofit that aimed to make the sport more accessible to people of color. “I’m a giver. This is my love language,” she said about having the ability to give back to the community as reported by NBC. She even sought professional help and worked on her mental health through the years, which made her more confident about herself.

Today, there is hardly anything that holds her back. She performs routines to hip hop songs as opposed to the traditional gymnastics beats, she carries fearless looks like her Beyonce-inspired Leo from the Renaissance tour 2024, and calls herself the ‘It Girl.’ Also, she is making sure her voice gets heard. No wonder she took her fight for the bronze medal to the Swiss Federal Court and is confidently fighting her legal battle. What do you think of this transformation? Let us know below!