“He Like Got in My Face”: Simone Biles’ First Encounter With a Boy Turned Into a Freak Show

Simone Biles is undoubtedly a master in gymnastics, but when it comes to the boys, it seems she is not even a Jack. Proof? Despite becoming an Olympic champion at the age of 19, she did not have a boyfriend till 20! While competing on Dancing With the Stars back in 2017, Simone said that she hadn’t yet had a boyfriend. “I have never had a boyfriend in my life,” she had told ET’s Lauren Zima. “At 20 years old I feel like you should have gone through those things and gone on dates. I have been on like, maybe one proper date,” she went on, adding further. Such inexperience had to have its effects. Biles’ most recent appearance on Alex Cooper’s podcast “Call Her Daddy” gave a glimpse of that.

In the podcast, Cooper inquired about her typical teen experiences, like going to prom. Simone had to confess that her life revolved too much around gymnastics, which made it difficult to make any friends, forget boys. “The first time I danced with a boy was on Dancing With the Stars was Sasha and it was after the Olympics,” Simone revealed on that note. Therefore, the encounter disastrous! “I was like 19 years old. I remember he like got in my face, grabbed me and I was like, ah. Like freaking out,” Simone detailed. But behind this, there stands a story of the crisis of a young girl who would vie for companionship.

“It was very hard to not make friends but to just keep them up because I couldn’t hang out with them on the weekends. I couldn’t go to Friday night live, I couldn’t do anything on the weekends. I was going to a gymnastics meet, I was doing this, that the other, so to me it was like, let me get my schoolwork done,” Simone seemed to bring out her younger self on the Podcast. Notably, although Simone met fellow gymnast and her first boyfriend Stacey Ervin Jr. in August 2014, they didn’t start dating until after her Dancing With the Stars appearance. In such a not-so-colorful life, Dancing With the Stars, apart from the first encounter with a boy, brought the platform for a longstanding friendship.

Simone Biles appeared on Dancing With the Stars season 24 in 2017. She partnered with professional dancer Sasha Farber for nine weeks. They show saw them performing a variety of traditional dance genres, including Foxtrot, Tango, and Rumba, as well as freestyle and contemporary before ending their journey in top-4. Back then, Biles summed up her experience, saying, “I’ve never danced in heels, never danced with a guy, so I feel like I’ve won a lot. I’ve won a friendship for life [with Farber]. I’ve been non-stop since the Olympics. I’ll have a week off.”  This encounter with Sasha and eventual friendship went beyond the stages of reality show in the following years.

…But the encounter turned into a support system for life

That friendship saw her reuniting with Sasha ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, where they worked to choreograph her floor routine. But not only friendship, there was a concrete thought from Simone Biles to collaborate with Sasha. “Usually, I have a different choreographer, but this year I felt like we needed to be a little bit different, spice it up,” Biles had stated back the. Her awe about Sasha was evident when she added, “Whenever I worked with Sasha on Dancing With the Stars, we always said, ‘Oh my gosh, if we could do a floor routine, how cool would that be?'” Sasha instantly agreed to work with Simone instantly and could not help reciprocating the awe. “She’s just so powerful. The energy in that gym was phenomenal,” Sasha had said about Simone. But the delightful collaboration ended on a sad note on the Olympic stage.

Simone had to back out in the middle of the Tokyo Olympics after her first rotation on the vault during the team final owing to her infamous “twisties”. Amid all the discussion, Sasha could only offer the passionate shoulder like a true friend. In a never-to-be-missed display of empathy, Sasha was quoted as saying by ET, “The pressure must be out of this world. Not only that, she’s literally holding all of America on her shoulders.”

It only showed how much Sasha cared for Simone when he said, “I know she’s going through a lot, and I’m sure she’s trying to just kind of breathe, I spoke to her coach, Cecile [Landi]. I know Cecile is there with her, acting as her mother, she’s there by her side, you can see 24/7. I’ve spoken to her. And yeah, I just hope whatever decision she makes, it’s gonna be for the right reason.” But there was one standout comment that Sasha made about his friend on that occasion: “I know she’s going to get through this.” And Simone could not have done better to prove him right.

She came back to her normal self and announced that on the competition mats with a bang. The 2023 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp, Belgium saw her bagging four gold medals. Her personal life also got sorted. She found her soulmate in Jonathan Owens when the world was reeling from the effects of the Pandemic. After dating for three years, they got married on April 22 last year. Simone’s inexperience did not create any awkward moment there, although! She is having her time with her man, happily and steadily.