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EXCLUSIVE: MyKayla Skinner helped Team USA win a silver medal in women’s gymnastics at the Tokyo Olympics after Simone Biles had to pull out with a case of sprains.
But at the Paris Games last summer, she had become an easy target for USA Gymnastics fans.
Last July 3, 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 microphone and a platform,” in a social media post the same day.
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Mykayla Skinner of Team United States poses with the silver medal after the Women’s Vault Final on day nine of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at the Ariake Gymnastics Center on August 1, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. (Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
Skinner apologized for the comments, insisting they were “misconstrued”. But that didn’t stop the online attacks from flooding her inbox and her mind.
“Words were twisted, things were said that I didn’t 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 they attacked and got at me was super devastating,” Skinner told Pakinomist Digital.
At the time, Skinner was a new mother.
“I was still breastfeeding at the time. And I just got so depressed because obviously I said something hateful,” she said. “I got death threats. My agent at the time had death threats and emails sent to her and they actually contacted her phone and sent her voicemails.”
Skinner claims that some critics even went so far as to tell her, “I shouldn’t be a mother.”
“It really took me down a spiral, it was really, really hard to go through and I felt like I couldn’t be the mother I needed to be to my daughter,” she said, 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 protecting women’s spots. This week, she became the newest ambassador for activist sportswear brand XX-XY Athletics, helping to 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 tough and scary subject, but it’s definitely grown a lot since the time when I was depressed and feeling alone, it’s given me something else to look forward to and advocate for… It’s helped me a lot and made me a lot stronger by talking about this issue.”
Skinner’s time to publicly act on that passion came 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 Minnesota girls championship. Gaines previously encouraged Biles herself to sign with XX-XY Athletics in a previous interview with Pakinomist Digital just three months earlier in March.
But after Gaines made a social media post calling attention to the softball problem in Minnesota on June 6, Biles infamously and unexpectedly came at Gaines with a quote repost on X, calling Gaines “really sick,” a “straight up sore loser” and a “bully.” A later post by 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 took sides 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 Simone attack Riley Gaines, it really broke my heart,” Skinner said. “Once that thing 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 up. I had a former teammate, you know, come up to someone and I was like, ‘this is not okay.’
Skinner believes Biles was authentic in her defense of transgender inclusion in women’s sports. However, Skinner hopes her former teammate will change his mind.
“I think she believes what she believes. I don’t think she’s on this side, at least not yet, and I hope she can turn around and join us,” Skinner said.
Skinner’s intervention 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 becoming 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 going to die. Like, ‘transgender people 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, should I shut up?”
She had a deep-seated fear of talking about the topic of trans athletes in women’s sports, or even other sensitive topics. Skinner even had to turn down an earlier opportunity to work with Gaines because of this fear.
“Riley, her team had reached out a couple of years before this situation happened. And again, too scared, I just felt like I couldn’t say anything because in the gymnastics world I’ve been 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 out,” 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 be in control… I was born and raised in it, that’s all I know.”
She also had to confront agreements about whether she would lose endorsements.
“I didn’t do a ton of endorsement deals anyway, and honestly, it’s not just 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 Pakinomist 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 were 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 mid-career or someone who had recently competed.
Now, with Skinner on her roster, Sey believes she has one of her biggest signings since the company’s launch.
“It’s huge,” Sey said of recruiting Skinner. “People like MyKayla are known to athletes who are currently competing in a much bigger way… it’s just such a big deal to 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 athletes who speak up, the less scared other people are, and that’s where we solve this problem.”
