Simone Biles and Jonathan Owens recently sat down to share their love story on The Pivot podcast hosted by retired footballers Ryan Clark, Fred Taylor and Channing Crowder. The conversation about their relationship started when Crowder asked Owens how he managed to pull the Olympic gold medalist.
The Green Bay Packers star began by saying, “It’s really how she pulled me man, that’s the question.” He then explained that they matched on Raya, a membership-based dating app, which the couple has disclosed before. “I’m like, ‘Lemme see who this is.’ I never really paid attention to gymnastics,” Owens said, explaining that he didn’t know she was the greatest gymnast of all time. “So it piqued my curiosity.”
Biles made the first move, messaging the former Missouri Western standout and liking his Instagram posts.
“I didn’t know who she was at the time. But like, the first thing that I saw was that she just had a bunch of followers. So in my mind I’m like, ‘OK, she’s got to be good,'” Owens said.
The hosts started laughing and side-eyeing the NFL player considering Biles has been on every platform imaginable, from social media to ESPN to magazine covers and major news channels.
He defended himself by saying, “When she won the Olympics, I was in college, and we didn’t have NBC, we didn’t have Olympics channels, and we were in [training] camp in late July, early August. So I’m not paying attention. I never had a moment where I would have watched [her perform].”
From there, he jumped back into how their story unfolded.
“She messaged me Tuesday, and then we were texting back and forth, and then we hung out Friday,” Owens recalled. “We couldn’t do much, because COVID happened and everything was shut down. So she came down to Houston. She lived in the suburbs, so she had to come about 45 minutes to me. Then the rest is history.”
Clark jokingly asked the NFL player whether he was the catch and Owens replied by saying he definitely was.
“I always say that the men are the catch,” he said.
“So she really booked you,” Clark responded. “She did, though! Because I was fighting it,” Owens added. “I was afraid to commit… but you know, it happens when you least expect it.”
He then said the moment he knew she was “the real deal” is when they went to grab milk and cookies. Fans were star struck and some were shaking in her presence, he recalled.
Rounding up that part of the conversation, one of the hosts said it’s safe to say that Biles flipped the script and was the one to shoot her shot. Ownens agreed. “Chances are if she didn’t message me, my mind would have went somewhere else.”
Commenters on the blogs weren’t crazy about what he had to say, criticizing Owens for calling himself the catch and claiming he didn’t know one of the greatest athletes out there. But Biles didn’t necessarily sit quietly throughout the conversation.
When Clark said that Biles was “lucky” because she took a chance and wouldn’t have Jonathan if she didn’t shoot her shot, she jumped in to defend herself and remind everyone that they matched, which means he was interested too, but she was just the first to message.
“I know what I like and I know what I want,” Biles added.
The couple tied the knot in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico earlier this year after meeting in 2020. Prior to that, they wed at a courthouse in Houston in April.