Simone Biles is making history by becoming the youngest athlete awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom honor by President Joe Biden.
According to the White House, the Presidential Medal of Honor is the Nation’s highest honor one could receive and is “presented to individuals who have made exemplary contributions to the prosperity, values, or security of the United States, world peace, or other significant societal, public or private endeavors.”
BIles certainly meets the requirements. The 25-year-old has advocated for mental health issues among athletes, sexually assaulted victims, and children in foster care. Biles still held her head up high after receiving a lot of backlash from many people after deciding to remove herself from the 2021 Tokyo Olympics for mental health reasons.
Ridiculous. We should celebrate winning in sport – not quitting. https://t.co/sYbaY6WtdX
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) December 9, 2021
However, many people came to the gymnast’s rescue.
“The way that they attacked Simon Biles, I was ashamed of our country because, first of all, most of the people that complained were sitting on their fat a**es on the couch,” comedian Leslie Jones said to The New York Times. “You’ll never do a cartwheel and you have the nerve to talk about someone and tell them that they let the country down? We have to start taking accountability that they are not actually superheroes. They do make it look like they’re superheroes, but they are humans.”
Biles’ fiancé took to Twitter to express how proud he is of his soon-to-be wife’s recent honor.
Still in disbelief, I’m so proud of you baby ❤️❤️ https://t.co/qhtck2urAw
— Jonathan Owens (@jjowens_3) July 1, 2022
Others being awarded the honor are actor Denzel Washington, U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, former U.S. Sen. John McCain, Apple co-founder (posthumously), former Alabama State Representative Fred Gray (who also represented Rosa Parks, the NAACP and Martin Luther King Jr. as an attorney), and more.
