Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles is opening up about her upbringing in foster care and having been adopted by her grandparents in her new Facebook Watch series Simone vs. Herself.
In the third episode titled “Who Am I?” Biles gets candid about the hardships that surrounded her upbringing.
Biles' adoptive mother, Nellie, said the gymnast's biological mother, who was struggling with alcoholism and drug addiction, could not adequately take care of her four children. Noticing the condition of the family, a neighbor intervened by calling a social worker.
“I don't remember a lot about foster care, but I definitely knew that we had been taken from our biological mom and then you just think you're going to go back to her," the 24-year-old recalls in the episode.
"We were very fortunate that we got to stay with your siblings because a lot of the time you either get re-grouped to home to home to home or you and your siblings get split up,” she continued.
Biles also remembered growing up with bouts of hunger as a child.
"Growing up, me and my siblings were so focused on food because we didn't have a lot of food," she recalled.
"I remember there was this cat around the house and I would be so hungry," the gymnast said. "They would feed this cat and I would be like, 'Where the heck is my food?' And so I think that's where it stemmed from. I don't like cats because this freaking street cat, she always fed it. But she never fed us."
Biles’ life changed for the better when she and her sister Adria were adopted by her mother’s father, Ron, and his wife Nellie per Insider.
“Being separated from my biological mom, being placed in foster care before I officially got adopted by my grandparents, it just set me up for a better route at life and I feel like I wouldn’t be where I am unless that turning point happened,” she said.
As Biles and Adria relocated to Texas to live with their grandparents, Ashley and Tevin, their two older siblings, were adopted by their father’s sister and moved to Ohio. According to Biles, being adopted by her grandparents put her on the path to become the person she is today.
In the episode, Nellie reflected on adopting Simone and looking at her as her own child.
"I knew I had my own barriers because these were not my biological children. You do everything that's nurturing, that's mothering because emotionally you still have to be there 100% and I was not," she revealed.
"I remember praying for that bonding," she continued. "Because telling them that you love them and you care for them. That's all words. But you wake up one day and you realize that you would do anything for these children and that you would die for these children and when that feeling comes, that's when you know you're truly a mother."
As Blavity previously reported, Biles continues to dominate the world of gymnastics, qualifying for a spot on the U.S. Women’s team at this summer's Olympic Games in Tokyo.