Can you imagine matching with one of the biggest female athletes of all time on a dating app and not knowing who she is? That’s what happened when Simone Biles met her now husband, Jonathan Owens, on a dating app. The Green Bay Packers player admitted that he had no idea Simone was such an accomplished athlete herself at the start of their relationship. Although that alone would have many people scratching their heads in disbelief, Jonathan then claimed that because he is a man, he is the “catch” in their relationship, not her. Needless to say, people have a lot of very strong feelings about his comment.
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Jonathan maintains that he really didn't know anything about Simone before they met.
In an interview on The Pivot podcast, Jonathan and Simone sat down and talked about how they first met.
“I’m like, ‘Lemme see who this is.’ I never really paid attention to gymnastics,” Jonathan said about seeing Simone on the exclusive dating app Raya in 2020. “So it piqued my curiosity.”
He claims he simply didn't have the time to pay attention to gymnastics.
It’s hard to imagine that in 2020 anyone could not know who Simone was, especially after her star turn at the 2016 Olympics. But Jonathan had what he thought was a good excuse as to why he had never heard of the superstar.
“When she won the Olympics, I was in college, and we didn’t have NBC, we didn’t have Olympics channels, and we were in [training] camp in late July, early August,” he explained on the podcast. “So I’m not paying attention. I never had a moment where I would have watched [her perform].”
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Despite all of his wife's accomplishments, Jonathan still thinks he's got the upper hand in their relationship.
Later in the interview, one of the hosts asked Jonathan if he thought that he was “the catch” in their relationship, and he seemed to genuinely think that he is. “I always say that the men are the catch,” he said.
Simone is the most decorated gymnast in the history of the sport, has millions of endorsement deals, and received a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2022. But when the host said to Owens, “So she really booked you,” the footballer had to agree.
Something’s not adding up here …
He didn't even take her fame seriously until he saw it in action.
Jonathan admitted that he didn’t really take his wife’s popularity seriously until he saw the effect she had on fans in public. He was apparently amazed by how starstruck people would be, even if they saw Simone doing something as simple as getting ice cream.
“It was all these moms and they’re there with their kids and we walked past and everybody stopped and just [stared],” Jonathan shared. “Kids were just shaking, like, ‘Oh, my God.'”
Social media is rightfully dragging him for his comments.
Naturally, social media is having a field day with Jonathan’s belief that he is the catch when he’s married to one of the greatest athletes of all time.
“Simone Biles is one of the greatest athletes who has ever lived. We have never witnessed her caliber of athlete. To the point they have to disqualify her from certain moves SHE invented to level the playing field for other athletes,” one X (formerly Twitter) user tweeted.
“The fact that not one person has called him anything other than ‘Simone Biles’s husband’ is sending me to orbit,” another tweet read.
“I’ve read sooooo many posts about Simone Biles’ husband saying he didn’t know who she was and that he was the catch and you know what? I STILL don’t know that man’s name,” someone else tweeted.
