Afaction of Simone Biles fans are continuing to take aim at her husband, Jonathan Owens, days after the NFL star sparked outrage by saying he had no idea who the gymnast was when she first met him.
Biles, who is the most decorated gymnast in history and widely considered the greatest of all time, is married to Green Bay Packers safety Jonathan Owens. The pair started dating in 2020 after they met on the celebrity dating app Raya. They tied the knot in March of this year.
On a recent appearance on The Pivot Podcast, Owens revealed he had never paid attention to gymnastics, and when Biles made the first move on the dating app they were using, he had never heard of the four-time Olympic gold medalist before.
When host Ryan Clark asked Owens if he considered himself “the catch” in their relationship, Owens quickly responded: “I always say that the men are the catch.” He also said that he had been “afraid to commit.”
“Literally had been on the app for a couple of days, man, and it’s like she pops up and, I’m like ‘Let me see who this is.’ I had never really paid attention to gymnastics, so it piqued my curiosity,” Owens said during the interview.
“I go do my workout, and I come back and I had some likes on my Instagram. I still waited and then I come back to my phone, and then she messaged me on the app like, ‘Hey.'”
He added: “I didn’t know who she was at the time, but the first thing that I saw was that she just had a bunch of followers so in my mind, I’m like, ‘OK, she got to be good.'”
Explaining how he had never heard of Biles, Owens said that when she was collecting medals at the Rio Olympics in 2016, he didn’t have access to the networks that aired the games.
“When she won the Olympics, I was in college and we didn’t have NBC, we didn’t have Olympics channels and we’re in camp,” he said. “So I’m not paying attention to, I never would have had a moment to where I would have watched.”
The backlash came thick and fast for Owens in recent days, as fans compared their levels of fame, and others accused the football player of misogyny. And, it appears, the fans remain furious.
Biles took to Instagram on December 25 to share a trio of romantic photos that showed her celebrating Christmas Day with Owens. Wearing matching pajamas, the two were shown kissing in front of a white Christmas tree in one image, while another showed them sharing festive drinks.
“MERRY CHRISTMAS,” Biles wrote, to which Owens responded in the comments section: “First married Christmas,” along with two red heart emojis. Owens also shared similar photos on his Instagram account.
Taking aim at Owens over his recent comments, one Instagram user said: “Look, it’s the most decorated US gymnast in US Olympic history! And her… catch?”
“Merry Christmas to Simone Biles and Simone Biles’ husband who I never heard of until he married Simone Biles [because] NFL is only a thing in America but the whole world knows Olympians,” commented another.
“Not sure who that man is, but I do recognize the legendary Simone Biles!” another chimed in. “Merry Christmas to you girl!”
“Here is the most known and respected athlete in US… and there is her husband by her side,” commented another.
