Before the gold medals and the world records, before the history-making performances and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Simone Biles was a three-year-old foster kid in Ohio. Hungry. Uncertain. Watching other children play while she stood at the edge.
Her life story didn’t begin on a gymnastics mat, but in a foster home. And understanding that beginning is the only way to fully understand the woman she became, the success she built, and why she has spent years using her fame to fight for the children still living what she once lived.
Biography and Background – Who is Simone Biles?
Simone Arianne Biles was born on March 14, 1997, in Columbus, Ohio, as the third of four siblings. She is one of the most famous and widely researched athletes in the history of modern sport, a woman whose career on the gymnastics floor has produced records no one else has come close to touching.
But her biography goes beyond sports achievements.
This is an inspirational life story about what happens when a foster child gets the family, support, and opportunity she deserves, and then turns around to fight to make sure other kids get the same.
A childhood shaped by foster care
Simone’s biological mother struggled with drug and alcohol addiction throughout Simone’s early childhood. There were stretches when the children were left to fend for themselves for food. In a 2023 CNN Heroes interview—which Simone reposted on Instagram, tagging it “foster child”—she described those early years plainly:
“I actually was a foster kid, so I know some of those hardships that those kids go through. When my siblings and I entered foster care, it was because our biological mom was struggling with drug and alcohol abuse. I was three years old.”
She also recalls the hunger of those years in the same interview:
“I just remember, like, us as kids being so hungry and then I just remember this cat that would get fed and not, like, quite us.”
At age three, Biles and her three siblings—Adria, Tevin, and Ashley—were placed in foster care. Unlike many foster kids, they were fortunate enough to stay together in one home throughout their placement. Simone has spoken about how rare that was:
“We were very fortunate that we actually got to stay with our siblings because a lot of the time you either get moved from home to home to home, or you and your siblings get split up.”
Kinship care with her grandparents was the beginning of stability
When Simone’s grandfather, Ronald, learned that his grandchildren had been placed in foster care, he immediately began making calls, talking to lawyers, and doing everything he could to bring all four siblings to Texas. “I can’t stand the thought of those kids being scattered to strangers,” Simone says he told his wife in her historical biography Courage to Soar: A Body in Motion, A Life in Balance
What Ronald did has a name: kinship care. It’s when a family member steps forward to keep siblings together and connected to their roots rather than letting the system scatter them to strangers, and it’s one of the most stabilizing things that can happen for a child in foster care. Simone actually credits her adoptive grandparents for providing her with stability and support.
Simone and her sister Adria went to live with grandparents Ron and Nellie, while the two older siblings went to Ron’s sister. After it was determined that the children could not safely return to their biological mother, Ron and Nellie formally adopted Simone and Adria. Ron’s sister adopted the two older siblings, giving all four children in the family safe, permanent homes.
“Whenever we had visits with my grandpa, I was so excited. That was the person I always wanted to see walk into the foster home.” — Simone Biles, Dancing with the Stars, via Today.com
One of the first things Simone did when she arrived at her new home in Texas was jump on the trampoline her grandparents had put there for her.
Adopted at six
When Simone was six, Ronald and Nellie Biles formally adopted her and Adria. Ronald’s sister adopted Tevin and Ashley. All four siblings had permanent homes. Simone calls Ron and Nellie Mom and Dad.
“My parents saved me,” she said during her time on Dancing with the Stars in 2017. In her Facebook Watch series Simone vs. Herself, she reflected on what that turning point meant:
Melissa Phillip / Houston Chronicle / via Getty Images
“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.“
Her sister Adria wrote about their bond in an ESPN essay in 2016: “Simone is as outgoing as she seems, She’s also kind and humble, and I’m so proud to have her as my sister. I look up to her in every way.” Their relationship was built through a shared childhood that was frightening, then joyful, then transformative, and is one of the most heartwarming threads in Simone’s biography.
Simone has described feeling fierce protectiveness over Adria from early childhood:
“I wanted to take care of Adria, obviously because she was the baby. I just felt like I needed to look out for her because if family doesn’t look out for you, who’s going to?”
Shortly after being adopted, Simone came across a gymnastics gym during a school field trip. She had never encountered the sport before. “I’d never even heard of gymnastics before,” she told CNN. “I was just like, ‘Oh, I bet I could do that!'”
via Nikolas Liepins/Anadolu via Getty Images
Her grandparents supported her immediately and unconditionally. What followed is one of the most remarkable careers in the history of sport.
Career highlights:
2013 — Won U.S. and World Championships all-around titles in her first senior year
2016, Rio Olympics — Four gold medals; first woman to achieve this since 1974
2016 — Courage to Soar published
2021, Tokyo Olympics — Withdrew from several events to protect her mental health; returned to win bronze on beam; changed how society talks about athlete wellbeing
2022 — Awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden
2023, Antwerp — Won her 21st world championship gold medal; sixth all-around title
2024, Paris Olympics — Team gold, all-around gold, vault gold, floor silver; most decorated American gymnast in Olympic history
Simone Biles is the most decorated gymnast in history with 41 Olympic and World Championship medals. She holds six World all-around titles and nine U.S. Championships titles. Four gymnastics skills carry her name.
Mental health and choosing yourself first
When Simone stepped back from multiple events at the Tokyo Olympics to protect her mental health, it became one of the most written-about moments in modern sports. Critics and celebrities weighed in. The conversation about athlete wellbeing (long something people preferred to avoid) moved to the center.
Her early childhood experiences shaped her relationship with mental health in ways that most athletes never have to reckon with. Growing up in an unstable environment, navigating the fear and uncertainty of foster care, and carrying the weight of a difficult past don’t disappear just because you become famous. For Simone, the pressure of competing at the highest level in the world compounded experiences she had never fully had the space to process. At the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, it all came to a head — and she made the decision to step back from several events to protect herself.
She has spoken openly about therapy throughout her career, including in the aftermath of the Larry Nassar abuse scandal, which affected her and many of her former teammates. Her advocacy in this space comes from lived experience from a childhood that required survival, and an adult life that finally gave her the tools to do more than just survive. Still, Simone has continued practicing gymnastics.
“I never thought I’d step foot on the gymnastics floor again just because of everything that had happened. But with the help of my coaches, I got back in the gym and worked really hard, mentally and physically.”
Since 2020, Simone Biles has been a dedicated partner and patron of Friends of the Children — a national organization that pairs professional, paid mentors with children facing the greatest challenges, including foster care, poverty, and family instability. 93% of kids from Friends of the Children avoid getting involved in the juvenile justice system, making it one of the most effective youth mentorship models in the country. Mentors of this organization are not volunteers who appear briefly and move on; they commit to staying with the same child for 12 years, from kindergarten through high school graduation, to guide and protect them.
“I was a foster kid, so I know how hard it is to feel like no one’s there. Those young people will always have a piece of my heart, which is why Friends of the Children is so dear to me.”
“Whenever I was younger, I would’ve loved to have an organization like this and someone to watch over me and believe in me.”
She has written an op-ed for USA Today on the organization’s work. She was honored as a Champion for Children at their 30th Anniversary Gala in Santa Monica. In October 2024, she donated $50,000 to the organization and helped launch the Friends of the Children Houston chapter in her hometown, and welcomed youth members to the Simone Biles Invitational at the World Champions Centre, gifting them an Olympic medal and an autographed plaque for their clubhouse.
She hosts annual virtual video calls with hundreds of youth in the program — leading affirmations, taking questions, and sharing her story. Youth who have appeared on those calls describe seeing themselves in her in a way they don’t see themselves in other celebrities. She says:
“I know exactly what these kids go through and what they need to be successful when they’re older: having one constant person in their life from when they’re young, all the way through high school graduation. It’s that constant in your life—that one person to lean on when it feels like no one’s there.”
Simone Biles is famous for gymnastics. She is famous for gold medals, records, and moves that no one else can do, yes. She is absolutely a woman whose name belongs in any serious conversation about the greatest athletes in history, not just among women, not just in her sport, but across the full sweep of modern athletic achievement.
But she is also, and will always be, a foster kid from Ohio who knows exactly what it feels like to stand on the outside looking in.
She’s a strong advocate for children in the foster care system not only because she is one, but because she puts in the work. That knowledge and passion is what she brings to every mentorship event, every donation, every honest interview, every video call with hundreds of kids who need to hear that someone who looks like them made it through.
And when she gets in front of those kids, she doesn’t talk about gold medals. She tells them the truth: she’s been in their exact position.
“I tell them that they’re not alone and that it’s going to be OK. That you can still be great in the world. Being in foster care isn’t going to be your only title.”
Her story sits alongside the most compelling lives in any era of women’s biography. It is a subject worthy of literature, of film, of serious research and presentation. It has been written about by scholars, covered in entertainment media, discussed by celebrities and members of Congress, and referenced in advocacy work across the country. It has appeared in music, in art, in the conversations of a society trying to understand what it means to transform systemic failure into individual triumph.
She has shown respect for every child who has lived what she lived. She has turned her past into a gift — not just for the kids she meets directly, but for every foster child who will discover her story and understand that where you begin does not determine where you end.
Make a Difference for Kids in Foster Care
Simone Biles has spent years showing up for foster kids because she knows firsthand what it means to need someone in your corner. At Foster Love, we believe every child deserves that same support — and everything we do, from first night kits to team building experiences, is built around making sure they get it.
