Social Media Rips Simone Biles' Apology To Riley Gaines As PR Statement
The Olympic gymnast took four days to respond after facing enormous backlash.
The Internet does not believe Simone Biles wrote her "apology" tweet to Riley Gaines, which has quickly made its way around the sports and political world.
Currently, there are more than 9,000 tweets all using the phrase "Your PR," on X.
X Trending: "Your PR"
As someone who lives on social media and covers trending topics, let me tell you this: The fact that so many people immediately concluded that Biles' statement was something out of a public relations manual is honestly wild.
However, it's easy to think that after reading Biles statement…I mean apology. (Note, Riley did accept Simone's "apology.")
On Tuesday morning, Biles responded to former All-American swimmer and OutKick's very own Riley Gaines over a debate regarding transgender athletes. In her original tweet on Friday, which Simone even retweeted later for emphasis, the seven-time Olympic gold medalist called Gaines "truly sick" and even insinuated that the swimmer looked like a man.
Biles' tweet soon went super-viral and became a topic on political and sports talk shows, including Stephen A. Smith, who had Riley Gaines on as a guest on his podcast on Tuesday.
"The current system doesn’t adequately balance these important principles, which often leads to frustration and heated exchanges, and it didn’t help for me to get personal with Riley, which I apologize for," Biles wrote on Tuesday.
However, the backlash is now coming at Biles for taking four days to issue her response, which some believe reads a bit suspect.
"The people you upset originally see through your PR team, AI created, half-arsed apology. Nobody believes it, and it was clear that you don't believe what you were originally saying either," one person tweeted before also adding that "the people who cheered you on now think you're a massive bigot." Welcome to 2025, everyone!
"When you have to hire a PR team to write your tweets, you've lost!" another wrote.
"Took your PR team long enough to come up with this."
"Your PR tweet ain't gon' cut it" reads another one among the countless others.
In addition to accepting Biles' apology, Gaines also explained more about why she believes she is advocating for women's rights in sports.
Riley's response didn't take four days.
It took less than one hour.