Behind the unbridled success and the golden smile of Simone Biles, the most decorated U.S. gymnast in Olympic history, is a painful past.
At the age of three, Simone and her three siblings found themselves in foster care amid their biological mother’s drug and alcohol problem. Simone’s grandfather, Ron Biles, and his wife, Nellie Cayetano, ended up adopting Simone and her younger sister, Adria, some years later, while their elder siblings fell into the care of Ron’s sister, Harriet. It was a traumatic experience for Simone and her siblings, to say the least, which speaks volumes of her character and her ability to overcome adversity at such a young age.
Right now, Biles is widely considered the greatest gymnast in the history of the sport, and her 11 Olympic medals (four of them came from the recently concluded Paris Games) are a clear testament to this fact.
Simone’s biological mother, Shannon Biles, also saw this as an opportune time to speak her truth about her own harrowing experience of having to give up her children because of her alcohol and substance abuse problem many years ago.
