Simone Biles was present for the entirety of husband Jonathan Owens’ now-viral interview — and she never expected it to cause major controversy online.
“I didn’t think anything of that interview, and he never said I wasn’t a catch. He said he was a catch. Because he is,” Biles, 27, told “Call Her Daddy” host Alex Cooper during the podcast’s Wednesday, April 17, episode. “I’ve never met a man like him. A lot of people that meet him are like, ‘Oh my gosh, I want a man like that, like Jonathan.’”
Owens, 28, made headlines in December 2023 for saying on “The Pivot” podcast that he’s the “catch” in his relationship with Biles. Listeners also took umbrage with Owens, an NFL player, after he admitted to having no idea who Biles was when they first matched on Raya in 2020.
Biles, meanwhile, was unfazed. “I was in the room. I was sitting on the chair. You just couldn’t see me on the videos. I was there for the whole entire video,” she recalled on Wednesday. “I was feeling great. I was like, ‘My man just killed that.’”
She added: “They even panned over to me with that viral moment, and I just rolled my eyes and laughed.”
After the interview, Biles said she thought “everything was OK.” She added, “Then, I go on Twitter and everybody’s like, ‘Divorce this man, he’s mean.’”
But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Biles told “Call Her Daddy” host Cooper that Owens is “the sweetest” person.
“He praises the ground that I walk on. Truly, I’ve never met a man like him. He still opens my doors,” she continued. “I’m not saying that to be like, ‘He still opens my doors because that’s to be expected of men,’ but he truly goes out of his way to do anything for me.”
Biles and Owens matched on Raya shortly after he moved to Texas, where her gym is located. He proposed in February 2022 after two years together, and they tied the knot in April 2023. (Owens played for the Houston Texans and Green Bay Packers before signing with the Chicago Bears last month.)
“First of all, that interview had nothing to do with me. It was all for him. So, I think they were mad that he didn’t include me in the interview, but he has to have his moments too. And I let him have it,” Biles said, speculating why the reaction was so extreme. “Whenever I go to football games, sometimes I get field passes, but I’m not like, ‘Hey, look at me, Simone Biles is here.’ I just want to see my man in that uniform. Give me a little kiss. Good luck out there. It’s like this is his moment, that’s his interview. What was I supposed to interrupt that interview?”
At first, Biles thought the backlash was “hilarious,” but when the comments started to “really hurt,” she “broke down.”
“I’m like, ‘Why are you guys talking about my husband like this?’ You don’t know him. You don’t know who he is,” she said. “If anybody’s met him, they know he’s the sweetest guy and will do anything for anybody.”
Biles added: “Talk about me all you want, but don’t come for my family.”