MyKayla Skinner speaks out on ‘Saving Women’s Sports’ after Simone Biles clash

SPECIAL: MyKayla Skinner helped Team USA win the silver medal in women’s gymnastics at the Tokyo Olympics after Simone Biles had to withdraw due to a twist.

But she became an easy target for USA Gymnastics fans at last summer’s Paris Games.

On July 3 of last year, Skinner posted a video about the 2024 U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics team and made controversial comments about the team’s “talent and depth.” The video sparked a viral reaction from fans and even former teammates. “Not everyone needs a microphone and a platform,” Biles wrote in a social media post the same day.

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Skinner apologized for the comments and insisted they were “misinterpreted.” But that didn’t stop online attacks from flooding his inbox and mind.

“Words were twisted, things were said that I didn’t mean, so yeah, it was a very scary and difficult time. I love those girls more than anything, so it was really sad to see what happened and the way they attacked me and came at me was extremely devastating,” Skinner told Fox News Digital.

At the time, Skinner was a new mother.

“I was still breastfeeding at the time. And I got very depressed because obviously I said some hate,” she said. “I was getting death threats. My manager at the time was getting death threats and emails were being sent to him and they were actually contacting his phone and sending him voicemails.”

Skinner claims some critics went so far as to tell her, “I shouldn’t be a mother.”

“It really threw me into a tailspin, it was really hard to go through and I felt like I couldn’t be the mother I needed to be for my daughter,” she said as she became visibly emotional. “It was so scary to feel like the world hated you.”

But despite it all, Skinner says the experience helped her find her purpose in becoming an advocate for protecting women from blemishes. This week, she became the newest ambassador for activist sportswear brand XX-XY Athletics, helping launch a new Olympic-themed collection called the “Gold Medal Campaign.”

“I’ve always believed in protecting women’s sports,” Skinner said. “It’s a really difficult and scary topic, but it’s definitely grown a lot since that time when I was depressed and feeling lonely, it’s given me something else to look forward to and be an advocate for… It’s helped me so much and made it so much more empowering for me to talk about it.”

The time for Skinner to take public action on his passion came in June, after Biles got into another online fight.

Conservative influencer Riley Gaines had recently publicized an incident involving a biologically male transgender softball pitcher who won the girls state championship in Minnesota. Gaines previously urged Biles to sign with XX-XY Athletics in an interview with Fox News Digital in March.

But after Gaines made a social media post on June 6 calling attention to the softball problem in Minnesota, Biles infamously and unexpectedly came out to Gaines with a quote about X, calling Gaines “really sick,” a “brutal loser” and a “bully.” A later post from Biles implied that Gaines was “the same size” as “a man.”

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Biles later deleted those posts and issued an apology, but not before Skinner chose a side in the debate. Skinner posted a statement supporting Gaines on social media while claiming Biles was the victim of her own “bullying.”

“I was truly heartbroken when I saw Simone attack Riley Gaines,” Skinner said. “When that happened, I said, ‘You know what, it’s time for me to find my voice and stand up and stand with Riley.’

“This was my chance to speak out. I had a former teammate, he attacked someone and I said ‘this is not right’.”

Skinner believes Biles is original in her advocacy for transgender inclusion in women’s sports. But Skinner hopes his former teammate will change his mind.

“I believe he believes what he believes. I don’t think he’s on this side, at least not yet, and hopefully he can come back and join us,” Skinner said.

Skinner’s remarks became one of the biggest turning points in the viral feud sensation between Gaines and Biles in early June.

But this had a price he was used to.

“I got a crazy letter in the mail with no sender address,” Skinner said. “They were telling me I was going to Hell, that I was going to die. Like, ‘Transsexuals are born in the womb,’ and they informed me that I was wrong, that I was stupid, and that I had no idea what I was talking about.”

Skinner said the letter surprised him so much that at one point he even thought to himself: “Oh my God, am I supposed to keep quiet?”

They had deep-seated fears about talking about transgender athletes and even other sensitive topics in women’s sports. In fact, Skinner had previously had to turn down the opportunity to work with Gaines due to these fears.

“Riley had reached out to the team a few years before this came up. And again, I was so scared, I felt like I couldn’t say anything because I’ve been through so much in the gymnastics world. I get a lot of criticism. I feel like you can’t speak up in the gymnastics world. You can’t speak up,” Skinner said.

“As gymnasts, all we did was eat, sleep and gym 24/7… They almost instilled in us the fear that we couldn’t say anything because they didn’t want us to have the power and control… I was born and raised into it, that’s all I know.”

He also had to face dealings over whether he would lose endorsements.

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“I wasn’t getting a lot of endorsement deals anyway, and honestly, for me, it’s not just about the money. Like, I can find other endorsement deals from people who love and support what I do,” Skinner said.

As a brand ambassador for XX-XY Athletics, Skinner is now teammates with Gaines and other “Save Women’s Sports” activists, including Olympic gold medalist female swimmer Nancy Hogshead and former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Paula Scanlan.

The company’s founder, Jennifer Sey, told Fox News Digital in February that the biggest thing she thinks is missing from her brand is a star with a “high-level” athletic career, adding that Sey knows some of the stars, including Olympians, who she “spots” because she knows they’re “secretly on her side.”

Sey wanted a young athlete who was either mid-career or someone who had competed recently.

Sey, who now includes Skinner in his squad, believes he has made one of the biggest transfers since the company was founded.

“It’s huge,” Sey said of hiring Skinner. “People like MyKayla are being recognized by athletes who are competing in a much bigger way now… that means a lot to us, she was a star of USA Gymnastics for so long.

“I get DMs every day from people saying, ‘We love your brand, we’re too scared to wear it.’ And the more engaged athletes there are, the more high-profile athletes speak out, the less other people are afraid, and that’s when we’ll solve this problem.”

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