Newsmax host Greg Kelly attacked Olympic gymnast Simone Biles on Friday night after Time magazine named her “Athlete of the Year.” He bellowed, “Time magazine’s Athlete of the Year is Simone Biles. Remember? She quit, she quit in the middle of the Olympics. Time made her ‘Athlete of the Year.’ The world has gone mad!” He went on to claim that Biles, a survivor of USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar’s sex abuse, “was in a bad mood and just kind of walked off” during the Tokyo Olympics, insisting “she let her team down.” In reality, Biles’ teammates threw their support behind her after she withdrew from competition for mental health reasons. Widely considered the greatest female gymnast of all time, she had spoken of feeling like she had the “weight of the world” on her before the games. Time explained they had chosen her for the honor precisely because she “made clear the importance of prioritizing oneself and refusing to succumb to external expectations.” Kelly, however, appeared to miss this point entirely, grumbling that “this is ridiculous, this is insulting, this is un-American, in my opinion.”
