Simone Biles Acts Surprised To Win ESPY Over Male Nominees After Feud With Riley Gaines Over Trans Athletes

Despite embarrassing herself in a gender-related debate with Riley Gaines a month ago, Simone Biles couldn't resist making a tongue-in-cheek comment about men during the ESPYs.

Biles won the ESPY award for Best Championship Performance for her efforts to win the 2024 Olympics all-around gold medal. She took home the honor over fellow nominees Rory McIlroy, Steph Curry, and Freddie Freeman, and the first thing she did after being handed the award was mention that those three athletes are, in fact, men.

"That was very unexpected, especially in a category of all men. So thank you guys so much," she said, which was predictably met with applause.

Biles acting surprised that an award show put on by ESPN and Disney would give a woman the honors over three men is beyond rich, but hey, when you're on an ESPN broadcast, you have to take the opportunity to take a shot at men to get a cheap laugh.

SportsCenter tweeting out the video of Biles making the comment was as predictable as the sun coming up tomorrow.

Biles also won an ESPY for Best Athlete in Women's Sports during the show.

While it's impossible to say if Biles' comment had anything to do with Gaines or their back-and-forth from last month, her immediately going to the gender conversation after being handed an ESPY shows a certain predilection toward gender and identity regarding, well, just about anything.

In early June, Biles went after Gaines, host of the ‘Gaines For Girls’ podcast on OutKick, with a string of inaccurate, ridiculous personal criticisms after Gaines made the simple point that it is wrong and unfair for men to compete in women's sports.

Old Tweet Comes Back to Haunt Simone Biles in Feud With Riley Gaines

The 11-time Olympic medalist called Gaines "truly sick" and claimed she should be "uplifting the trans community" before telling Gaines she should "bully someone your own size," which Biles wrote "would ironically be a male."

This was in response to Gaines pointing out the ridiculousness of a Minnesota high school softball team winning a state championship last week while being led by a pitcher who is a biological male.

Four days after her personal attack of Gaines, Biles issued an apology to Gaines while slightly adjusting her stance on transgender athletes in women's sports. 

"I accept Simone's apology for the personal attacks including the ones where she body-shamed me," Gaines wrote on social media after Biles' apology. "I know she knows what this feels like. She's still the greatest female gymnast of all time."