Treachery. That was what many Jamaican fans accused Junelle Bromfield of when her American boyfriend, Noah Lyles, shared he knew what was going on with his Jamaican rivals. “Junelle being Jamaican and having trained in MVP, I’ve been getting the drama from Jamaican camps for at least five years,” Lyles had shared and since he defeated Kishane Thompson for the 100m gold medal in Paris, things have gotten worse for Bromfield. She started receiving death threats and had to turn off her inbox.

So when Jamaica’s Simone Clarke wanted to do an episode of SIM Soul Sessions with Bromfield in Jamaica, the sprinter had to refuse as she was afraid to go back to her country. Instead, Clarke and her team flew to Orlando to speak to the athlete. In a new Instagram post by SIM Soul Sessions, the caption read, “Junelle feels people don’t fully understand the challenges she’s faced in recent months. Therapy has been her foundation during this time, and she started it thanks to her boyfriend, Noah Lyles.”

“Driven by a fear of returning to poverty, she was determined to change her life. At just 8 years old, she decided she would become an Olympian.” What really is Junelle Bromfield’s story?

Junelle Bromfield opened up on her difficult childhood in Jamaica. She confessed, “So I grew up in a poor community called George’s Valley, where when I grew up, I didn’t see a profession bigger than a teacher at the point when I was in there. So growing up, I would say my mom did a pretty amazing job of not letting us know that we were poor because we all we never went to bed hungry or anything.”

The sprinter who has been in the US for the past two years has worked hard so that she doesn’t have to go back to poverty. Take, for instance, the protest that took place in George’s Valley in St. Elizabeth in June. Residents mounted roadblocks to protest against the lack of proper electricity or water.

Junelle Bromfield also shared a personal story. “Like on nights when she did not have any money, she used to make us oatmeal, and it tasted so good because she used to put in like nutmeg and everything and it was good.” But their oatmeal was always quite runny and a young Junelle thought that’s what oatmeal was made. But when she was 8 years old, someone gave her a bowl of thick oatmeal and she was like, “This is not how you make oatmeal.”

That’s the day she started to see the world differently and decided to take control of her life and not limit herself. Unfortunately, Bromfield’s mother, Sandra Farquharson, succumbed to cancer in 2021 and that was one of the most difficult moments in the athlete’s life. She also lost two brothers.

The past few years have been undeniably tough, particularly on her mental health, as she’s been coping with the loss and working hard to heal. On top of this, all the hate and threats she received pushed her to a dark place.

All the hate made Junelle Bromfield contemplate quitting the sport!

On the same show, Junelle Bromfield admitted how things took a turn for the worse during the Olympics. A mix of factors—her underwhelming Olympic performance and Noah Lyles’ confession that she had shared gossip from the Jamaican tents—put her in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. The aftermath was deeply traumatizing for her.

In an Instagram post by SIM Soul Session, fans got to know how things were affecting her deeply. “While still working through and processing that grief, she’s now processing the fire from a fan base that has questioned her loyalty to country out of the recently held Olympics. She wasn’t ready for the online hate and hurt hurled at her – from her own people,” the post read.

“Cyberbullying, colorism, and even death threats. It has all left her questioning her future in track, not only whether she wants to do it anymore, but if she wants to do it for Jamaica.”

The fact that she cheered for Lyles during the 2024 Paris Olympics made things much worse. She didn’t win any medals for Jamaica in Paris, and this added fuel to the fire. But are we forgetting that Junelle Bromfield won the bronze medal at Tokyo 2020 for the Women’s 4 x 400m Relay?

Apart from her track achievements, the sprinter walked her first fashion show with New York Fashion Week earlier this month. Despite all the hate hurled towards her, she seems to be consistently moving ahead. What do you think?