Marcus Ingram/Getty Images Simone Biles in Houston on Jan. 22, 2023
‘At the end of the day, gymnastics is harder – if he agrees or not,’ Biles says
Simone Biles may have more than one Olympic gold medal under her belt, but that hasn’t stopped her and her husband Jonathan Owens from debating who’s the better athlete.
While appearing on Peacock’s 2023 Back That Year Up, the gymnast explained that she and the NFL player have argued over which one of them is the better athlete. During the programme, co-hosts Kenan Thompson and Kevin Hart asked Biles: “Who is the better athlete in the house?”
“I think we’re good at our own sports,” she replied. “We’ve tried to pin each other against [one another] on, like, difficulty, ability and all that stuff. So, at the end of the day, gymnastics is harder – if he agrees or not.”
Owens currently plays for the Green Bay Packers, after spending four seasons playing for the Arizona Cardinals. Despite Biles claiming that both her and Owens are good at their respective sports, Thompson decided to be honest about who he believed was the better athlete. “That’s a nice politician’s answer, but here’s the truth. I know your name, that’s all I’m going to say. I know your name,” the Saturday Night Live comedian said.
Hart then chimed in, pointing out a detail in Biles previous comment. “Let’s go back to what you just said, which is that gymnastics is much harder. Sounds like this has been a household fight for some time. Do you want to get into it now? Want to clear it up?”
The gymnast explained that she and her husband have “fought over” which sport is harder “a couple of times,” but promised each other that they “wouldn’t talk about it again” once they got married in April 2023. “It keeps coming up every time, but he has done my workout in the gym and he can barely do it, and then I went to their NFL workout and I crushed it,” she added.
The two hosts then joked with Thompson, saying: “Shots fired!” Hart added: “It’s a lot of uppercuts being thrown.”
Biles’ comments comes just days after the 28-year-old Packers safety came under fire for his recent remarks about his relationship with the most decorated gymnast of all time. The married couple made a joint appearance on the latest episode of The Pivot podcast, where Owens recalled how they met and how she was the one to make the first move.
“How in the hell did you pull Simone Biles?” podcast co-host Channing Crowder asked Owens. The NFL player revealed that he “didn’t know who she was” when they connected in 2020, after matching on the dating app Raya.
“I’m like, ‘Lemme see who this is.’ I never really paid attention to gymnastics, so it piqued my curiosity,” Owens admitted. Once he found her Instagram profile, he realised that Biles was a big deal. “The first thing that I saw was that she just had a bunch of [Instagram] followers. So in my mind, I’m like, ‘Okay, she’s gotta be good.’”
Owens explained that he wasn’t aware of Biles because when she rose to fame, he was knee-deep in college football training all summer. The NFL safety recalled: “When she won the Olympics, I was in college and we didn’t have NBC, we didn’t have Olympics channels, and we were in [training] camp [in] late July, early August.”
When asked if he believes he’s the “catch” in their relationship, Owens replied: “I always say that the men are the catch.”
After the podcast episode was released, Owens received much criticism for his comments – particularly for calling himself the “catch” when Biles is a decorated Olympian. However, the 26-year-old gymnast came to her husband’s defense when she responded in a tweet on 23 December: “Are y’all done yet?”
