Simone Biles Returns to Gymnastics to Be a Voice for Abuse Survivors

On the Today show, Simone Biles shared how she returned to gymnastics to be a role model for younger generations and speak up for abuse victims.

Biles said, “I just feel like [with] everything that happened, I had to come back to the sport to be a voice, to have change happen.”

The abuse that Biles referred to is that of former Team USA gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, which has been sentenced to up to 175 years in prison for sexually abusing women and girls in the gymnastics world for years, according to People. 

Biles was one of the many women to speak up about the abuse. 

“Because I feel like if there weren’t a remaining survivor in the sport, they would’ve just brushed it to the side,” said the gold medalist. 

Last year Biles shared with Vogue details about the toll that the abuse took on her mental health. 

“I was very depressed,”

“At one point, I slept so much because, for me, it was the closest thing to death without harming myself. It was an escape from all of my thoughts, from the world, from what I was dealing with. It was a really dark time.”

She also continued to share that she felt guilty about feeling the way she did. 

“But I was reading Maggie’s coverage, and it just hit me,” she said in her interview. “I was like, I’ve had the same treatments. I remember Googling, like, sexually abused. Because I know some girls had it worse than me. I know that for a fact. So I felt like I wasn’t abused because it wasn’t to the same extent as the other girls.”

Related Story: Simone Biles Prepares for Her Final Olympics & Speaks on Sexual Abuse Allegations

Despite all she’s been through, Biles expressed that she’s ready for the Tokyo Games, which are now 100 days away, and that she plans to keep using her platform to shed light on the issue of abuse, 

reported The Grio.

Biles said, “Since I’m still here and I have quite a social media presence and platform, they have to do something.”

“So I feel like, coming back, gymnastics just wasn’t the only purpose I was supposed to do.”