Simone Biles got married to the man of her dreams a few days ago. The celebrated gymnast had to take an inconvenient break from basking in her marital bliss to address social media commenters criticizing her hair. The fuss is about the new wife’s edges allegedly not being sleek enough for her wedding day. She wore her hair in a soft, curled ponytail to wed Jonathan Owens on April 22. Some gave unsolicited opinions, saying Biles should have worn a wig.
A Twitter user named Cindy Noir came to Biles’ defense and weighed in on the matter.
“Simone Biles is one of THEE top gymnasts we’ve ever seen, has overcame situations of abuse and other obstacles in her childhood, has defined her own success and found love and is now happily married… and yall worried about her hair?!”
Biles didn’t take the criticism of her natural edges lightly as she took a moment out of her day to respond to Noir’s tweet.
“I think they also forgot I live in HOUSTON TEXAS & I sweat those out!! Soon as we stepped outside for pics,” she wrote. “But they can keep complaining idc idc idc.”
This isn’t the first time people have criticized the 26-year-old about her hair. Back in 2017, Biles posted an image of her first game as an honorary Texans cheerleader, and all people could focus on was her hair. In a cover story she did for Vogue in 2020, she touched on that incident and how people often criticize her hair and appearance. She’s also been the topic of hair discussions since she stepped on the main stage, competing in front of the world.
“They focused on my hair,” Biles said in the interview when asked about the rude comments she received when she first gained notoriety as a gymnast about her look, from head to toe. “But God made me this way, and I feel like if I didn’t have these legs or these calves, I wouldn’t be able to tumble as high as I can and have all of these moves named after me.”
For the record, Biles stated that her her courthouse wedding was not the main event for the couple. They are planning a destination wedding that will happen shortly, but needed to tie the knot before going abroad. So everything about her look, from her wedding band to her shoes from Amazon, was meant to be laid back.
“Everything was ordered this week,” Biles told fans during an Instagram Q&A. “dress. wedding bands. shoes. bouquet.”
“courthouse shoes were from amazon.. not comfy at all,” she wrote, adding jokingly, “i have stubby toddler feet.”
As for her big white wedding, Biles shared that she’s going all out, planning to wear four gowns.
“Kind of dramatic but you only have a wedding once,” she said.