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EXCLUSIVE: MyKayla Skinner helped Team USA win a women’s gymnastics silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics after Simone Biles had to pull out with a case of the twisties.
But by the Paris Games last summer, she had become an easy target for USA Gymnastics fans.
On July 3 of last year, Skinner posted a video about the 2024 US Olympic women’s gymnastics team, and made controversial comments about the team’s “talent and depth.” The video ignited viral backlash from fans and even former teammates. Biles wrote “Not everyone needs a mic and a platform,” in a social media post that same day.
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Mykayla Skinner of Team United States poses with the silver medal following the Women’s Vault Final on day nine of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Ariake Gymnastics Centre on August 01, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
Skinner apologized for the comments and insisted they were “misinterpreted.” But it didn’t stop the online attacks from flooding her inbox and her mind.
“Words were twisted, things were said that I did not mean, so yeah, it was a super scary, difficult time. I love those girls more than anything, so it was just really sad to see what happened and the way that they attacked and came at me was super devastating,” Skinner told Digital.
At the time, Skinner was a new mother.
“I was still nursing at the time. And I just got so depressed, because obviously I said some hate,” she said. “I was getting death threats. My agent at the time was getting death threats and emails sent to her, and they were actually contacting her phone and sending her voice messages.”
Skinner claims some critics even went so far as to tell her, “I shouldn’t be a mom.”
“It really did take me down a spiral, it was really, really hard to go through and I felt like I couldn’t be the mom that I needed to be for my daughter,” she said, while becoming visibly emotional. “It was a scary thing to go through just feeling like the world just hates you.”
But through it all, Skinner says the experience helped her find purpose in becoming an advocate for the protection of women’s spots. This week she became the newest ambassador for the activist sportswear brand XX-XY Athletics, helping launch a new Olympian-themed collection called the “Gold Medal Campaign.”
“I’ve always believed in protecting women’s sports,” Skinner said. “It really is a hard and scary topic, but it’s definitely grown a lot since that time of being depressed and feeling alone, it’s given me something else to look forward to and to be an advocate for… It’s helped me a lot and has made me a lot stronger talking about this topic.”
Skinner’s time to act publicly on that passion arrived in June, after Biles got into another online feud.
Conservative influencer Riley Gaines had just publicized an incident involving a biologically male transgender softball pitcher who won a girls’ state championship in Minnesota. Gaines previously called on Biles herself to sign with XX-XY Athletics in a previous interview with Digital just three months earlier in March.
But after Gaines made a social media post bringing attention to the softball issue in Minnesota on June 6, Biles infamously and unexpectedly came at Gaines with a quote repost on X, calling Gaines “truly sick,” a “straight up sore loser,” and a “bully.” A later post from Biles insinuated that Gaines was the “same size” as “a male.”
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Biles later deleted those posts, and issued an apology, but not before Skinner chose a side in the spat. Skinner released a statement on social media supporting Gaines, while claiming to be a victim of Biles’ own “bullying.”
“When I saw that Simone attacked Riley Gaines it really broke my heart,” Skinner said. “When that thing had happened, I was like ‘you know what, it’s time for me to find my voice and stand up, and stand by Riley’s side.’
“This was my chance to speak out. I had a former teammate, you know, come at somebody, and I was like, ‘this is not okay.’”
Skinner believes that Biles was being authentic in her defense of transgender inclusion in women’s sports. However, Skinner hopes that her former teammate will change her mind.
“I believe she believes what she believes. I don’t think she’s on this side, at least, not yet, and I hope that she can turn over and join us,” Skinner said.
Skinner’s interjection became one of the biggest twists of the viral feud sensation between Gaines and Biles in early June.
But it came with a cost that she was getting familiar with.
“I got a crazy letter in the mail with no return address,” Skinner said. “Basically just telling me I was going to Hell, I’m gonna die. Like, ‘transgenders are born in the womb,’ and they gave me all this information that I’m wrong and I’m stupid and I have no idea what I’m talking about.”
Skinner said the letter startled her so much, that at one point she even thought to herself, “Oh my God, do I need to stay silent?”
She had deep-seated fears about speaking up on the topic of trans athletes in women’s sports, or even other sensitive topics. Skinner even had to turn down a prior opportunity to work with Gaines due to those fears.
“Riley, her team had reached out a few years prior to this situation happening. And again, too scared, I just felt like I couldn’t say anything because in the gymnastics world, I’ve gone through a lot of things. I get a lot of criticism. I feel like in the gymnastics world, you can’t have a voice. You can’t speak up,” Skinner said.
“All we did as gymnasts was eat, sleep and do gymnastics 24/7… They almost put the fear in us that we just couldn’t say anything because they didn’t want us to have power and have control… I was born and raised in that, that’s all I know.”
She also had to confront deals about whether she would lose endorsements.
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“I wasn’t doing a ton of endorsement deals anyway, and honesty, it’s not all about the money for me. Like, I can find other endorsement deals from people who love and support what I’m doing,” Skinner said.
With her XX-XY Athletics brand ambassadorship, Skinner is now teammates with Gaines and other activists in the “Save Women’s Sports” space, including Olympic gold medalist women’s swimmer Nancy Hogshead and former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Paula Scanlan.
The company’s founder, Jennifer Sey, told Digital in February that the biggest thing she thought her brand was missing was a star with a “top-tier” athletic career, adding that she knew there some stars, including Olympians she was “keeping an eye on,” because Sey knew they were “secretly on her side.”
Sey wanted a young athlete, either in the midst of her career or someone who had competed recently.
Now, with Skinner on her roster, Sey believes she has one of her biggest signings since the company launched.
“It’s huge,” Sey said of recruiting Skinner. “People like MyKayla are known by athletes who are currently competing in a much greater way… it’s just such a big deal for us, she’s been a star for USA Gymnastics for so long.
“I get DMs from people every single day from people saying ‘we love your brand, we’re just too scared to wear it.’ And the more relevant athletes, the more high-profile atletes that speak up, the less afraid other people are, and that’s when we solve this issue.”
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