Simone Biles said a recent health scare was one of the scariest experiences of her life, posting on June 6 that she had been in bed resting this week after what she described as almost dying.
The 29-year-old gymnast shared a photo of her wrist with hospital bands on her Instagram story and later posted a picture of herself resting in bed with her dogs, along with an image of her heart rate. She wrote that “almost dying wasn’t on my bingo card earlier this week,” a line that landed with unusual force from an athlete who has spent much of her career discussing the strain elite gymnastics can put on the body.
Biles did not say what caused the scare. That silence is what makes the post travel so fast: she gave just enough to make the moment alarming, but not enough to explain it. She said her husband, Jonathan Owens, was in Indy for practices while she went through it, and added that she would explain “sooner or later” after thanking the close circle of people who reached out, visited and sent flowers.
The timing also sharpened the reaction. Just three days earlier, on June 3, Biles had posted a video of herself doing backflips on a trampoline, a reminder of how quickly an athlete’s public image can swing from effortless control to vulnerability. Her message comes with fresh memories of the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, when she withdrew from five events after suffering from the twisties, the loss of spatial awareness that can make a gymnast’s own skills dangerous in mid-air.
Biles has been open about the toll competition has taken on her body, even after winning four medals at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. She told French newspaper L’Equipe in 2025 that her body literally collapsed after returning to the village in Paris and that she was sick for 10 days. For now, the question is not whether she was shaken; it is what happened this week that left one of the sport’s biggest stars talking about almost dying and still not saying why.
