Simone Biles' husband is taking a break from football training camp to support her at the Olympics, months after he was criticized for saying he considered himself "the catch" in their relationship.
Biles, the most decorated gymnast in history and widely considered the greatest of all time, is married to Chicago Bears safety Jonathan Owens. The pair started dating in 2020 after they met on the celebrity dating app Raya.
The Bears are granting Owens a special training camp exclusion so he can support Biles at the Olympic Games. The 27-year-old is competing in her third consecutive Games, and on Tuesday she is set to vie for gold in the women's artistic gymnastics team final after a stunning showing in Saturday's qualifying round.
Owens sent some shock waves online last December when, during an appearance on The Pivot Podcast, host Ryan Clark asked him if he considered himself "the catch" in their relationship. Owens quickly responded: "I always say that the men are the catch." He also said that he had been "afraid to commit."
Newsweek emailed a representative for Biles and contacted Owens via Instagram for comment on Monday.
The football player also said that when Biles made the first move on the dating app, he had never heard of the four-time Olympic gold medalist. At the time, Owens was playing for the Houston Texans, and Biles is a Houston native.
"Literally had been on the app for a couple of days, man, and it's like she pops up. And, I'm like, 'Let me see who this is.' I had never really paid attention to gymnastics, so it piqued my curiosity," he said.
"I go do my workout, and I come back and I had some likes on my Instagram. I still waited, and then I come back to my phone, and then she messaged me on the app, like, 'Hey.'
"I didn't know who she was at the time, but the first thing that I saw was that she just had a bunch of followers. So in my mind, I'm like, 'OK, she got to be good.'"
While it may seem hard to believe that Owens had never even heard of Biles, he said that while she was collecting medals at the Rio Olympics in 2016 he didn't have access to networks that aired the Games.
"When she won the Olympics, I was in college, and we didn't have NBC, we didn't have Olympics channels, and we're in camp. So I'm not paying attention to, I never would have had a moment to, where I would have watched."
The outrage on social media came thick and fast, but both Biles and Owens appeared to laugh off the backlash. "Unbothered," Owens wrote in a December 22 Instagram post that included a series of photos of the couple. "Just know we locked in over here."
The NFL player is taking five days off from training camp to support his wife as she competes in Paris.
"Man, it's crazy," he told the Associated Press. "It's like everyone's a gymnastics fan now. People are asking me questions because you might be walking around the building and see a commercial with her up there, so it's just crazy."
The break from camp is something the Bears coaching staff has supported wholeheartedly. Since he agreed to a two-year contract in March as a free agent, Owens' travel plans have been in place.
"It was something me and my agent talked about when we went in and I signed with the team.... They were really cool about it," he said.
"First-class organization. I just want to thank them so much, even allowing me to go over and do that. I can't wait to be able to support her, and I know my family and my wife, she really appreciates it."
This is the first time that Owens has seen Biles compete since they started their relationship. During the 2021 Olympics, strict COVID-19 restrictions did not allow for additional people to attend the event.
Biles is the most decorated gymnast of all time, having won a combined 37 medals at world championships and the Olympics.
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