"There's bullies, there's a lot of people who make fun of the tiniest things" - Jordan Chiles on critics
Young gymnast Jordan Chiles recently shared her views on receiving criticism about her appearance. The 22-year-old revealed that she was bullied for how she looked but eventually learned how to deal with them.
In 2021, Chiles spoke about how her coach body-shamed and verbally abused her before her selection in the TEAM USA Squad. With time, the young gymnast has learned to accept herself and worked towards self-improvement. However, criticism has not left Jordan Chiles behind even after she became a public figure.
Recently, during an interview with Business Insider, Chiles revealed that the idea of changing her features due to others’ perspective felt “kind of crazy’ to her. She decided to take her mother’s advice which was to embrace herself.
She expressed her views on continuing to receive criticism,
"What we do is entertainment, so there's actually a lot of critics out in the world," Chiles said.
Furthermore, she said,
"There's bullies. There's a lot of people who make fun of the tiniest things."
Presently, the gymnast is preparing to compete at the 2024 Paris Olympics. She told in the interview that she is training for the big championship with a “do it yourself” mentality. She added,
"'24 was something that I was just like 'You know what? I'm going to go for it. I'm going to put everything that I have.'"
Simone Biles helped Jordan Chiles continue gymnastics
In 2021, Jordan Chiles’s mother Gina Chiles told New York Times that the gymnast decided to quit the sport when she was placed 11th at nationals in 2018. It only left her with a mindset of finishing high school and then attending college.
However, her mind changed when she talked to seven-time Olympic gymnast Simone Biles. She suggested she train with her at her gym, World Champions Centre in Texas.
It allowed him to train under Biles’s coaches Cecile and Laurent Landi. Eventually, Chiles's perspective changed towards gymnastics and she began to love the sport even more.
She revealed her feelings in an interview with Today,
“I discovered that gymnastics doesn’t always have to be about strictness and being so hard on yourself and having so much doubt,” Chiles said.
She continued,
“I actually realized this when I saw Simone compete. She looks like she’s having fun out there, laughing and giggling, and doesn’t look stressed or tired. I was like, ‘You know, I’m going to try that one of these days and see how it turns out.’”