Simone Biles shared a frightening update on Saturday, telling fans on Instagram that she nearly died from a health scare earlier in the week.
Biles posted to her Instagram Story saying she was resting in bed and recovering from an incident she will explain at some point in the future. She described it as one of the scariest moments of her life, made worse because her husband, Indianapolis Colts safety Jonathan Owens, was away at OTAs when it happened.
“I’m not one to normally share things like this because I value privacy in today’s age. But almost dying wasn’t on my bingo card earlier this week,” Biles wrote.
The seven-time Olympic gold medalist did not share specifics about what went wrong. She has not posted about hospital visits or any specific medical condition, and her team has not put out a statement. The vagueness has fans worried, and rightly so. When someone in elite athletic shape says they almost died, that is not a sentence you brush off.
Biles is 28 years old and arguably the greatest gymnast of all time. She won four golds at the 2024 Paris Olympics. She has been open about her mental health struggles in the past, especially after the twisties forced her to withdraw from events at the 2020 Tokyo Games. Her honesty about those moments helped a generation of athletes talk about pressure.
This feels different. Mental health updates usually come with more context. A physical health scare that puts someone in life-threatening territory is the kind of thing that takes months to recover from and even longer to talk about publicly.
The 2028 Los Angeles Olympics are two years away. Biles has not committed to competing, but she has not ruled it out either. Her recent cosmetic procedures had some observers thinking she might be done, since competitive gymnasts usually do not undergo body modifications until they retire. This latest scare puts the LA question on a different track entirely.
Owens, her husband, is going through his own offseason with the Colts. Indianapolis is in the middle of OTAs and has limited flexibility for players to leave for family emergencies. The fact that Biles felt the need to mention being alone during the scare tells you it was sudden and serious.
Her openness about it once she got through the worst of it is in line with how she has handled everything in her career. Biles has used her platform to push the conversation forward on athlete welfare, on Black women in sports, and on the cost of being the face of an Olympic sport. This is another piece of that.
The sports world rallied around her quickly on Saturday. Athletes from across leagues sent love. The USA Gymnastics Twitter account posted a supportive message. Even fans who had been critical of her in the past put it aside to wish her well.
There is no timeline for an update on what happened. Biles will share when she is ready. Until then, the takeaway is that one of the most famous athletes on Earth had a brush with something serious enough to scare her, and she chose to tell her followers about it.
Recovery comes first. Whatever this was, the gymnastics world is praying she gets through it fully. Everything else can wait.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
