Simone Biles Biography 2026: 11 Medals, $25M Fortune

Last updated: October 3, 2026

By Nathan Cole

Simone Biles was three years old when her grandparents adopted her out of foster care. Twenty-six years later she is the most decorated gymnast in history — 11 Olympic medals and 30 World Championship medals — and the owner of an estimated $25 million fortune built almost entirely off the competition floor.

Her story runs from a daycare field trip at age six to four gold medals in Rio, through the “twisties” that forced her out of the Tokyo Olympics, to a comeback in Paris that tied Serena Williams’ Laureus record. In 2023 she married NFL safety Jonathan Owens, and in September 2026 she told the Associated Press she is leaning toward competing at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics — a decision, she says, that keeps her up at night.

What follows is the full picture: the childhood, the records, the money, the marriage, and what comes next.

Early Life: From Foster Care to a Family

Simone Arianne Biles was born on March 14, 1997, in Columbus, Ohio, the third of four children. Her birth mother, Shanon, struggled with substance abuse, and the children were removed from the home and placed in foster care. Biles has said she does not remember hunger, but she does remember being taken from the only home she knew.

When Simone was three, her maternal grandfather Ronald Biles and his wife Nellie formally adopted her and her younger sister Adria. Her two older siblings were adopted by a great-aunt. The family moved to Spring, Texas, in the Houston area. Simone calls Ronald and Nellie “Mom and Dad,” and she has never treated the adoption as a wound — she describes it as the rescue of her life.

That stability matters to the money story later. Nellie Biles, a former nurse, and Ronald, a retired Air Force staff sergeant, built a middle-class household that could absorb the costs of elite gymnastics — tens of thousands of dollars a year at the top levels. Few champions start from foster care; fewer still get the second act Biles received at age three.

A Daycare Field Trip Found a Champion

At six, on a daycare field trip to Bannon’s Gymnastix near Houston, Simone watched gymnasts practicing and started copying them. The coaches noticed immediately and sent a note home. She enrolled, and for the next 11 years she trained under coach Aimee Boorman — a partnership that carried her from cartwheels to the world stage.

She was homeschooled through high school to free up training hours, finishing her coursework between gym sessions. The trade paid off fast: she won gold on floor and bronze on vault at the 2010 Women’s Junior Olympic National Championships, broke into the elite ranks in 2011, and by 2013 — at 16 — she was the best in the world.

The Rise: Winning the World at 16

At the 2013 World Championships in Antwerp, in her senior international debut, Biles won the all-around gold. She was 16 years old. Then she won it again in 2014. And 2015. No woman had ever won three consecutive world all-around titles.

The winning formula was difficulty no one else would touch. Her routines carried start values a full point above the field — she didn’t need to be perfect, she just needed to stay on the apparatus. She finished 2015 with 10 world gold medals total and, at 18, was already the heavy favorite for Rio.

Rio 2016: Four Golds and the Final Five

Rio de Janeiro turned her from a gymnastics star into a global celebrity. Biles led the U.S. team — dubbed the “Final Five” — to team gold, then won the individual all-around, vault, and floor exercise, adding a bronze on beam. Four gold medals at a single Games made her the first female U.S. gymnast ever to do it.

The endorsement money arrived the same summer. Brands had been circling; after Rio, deals with Nike, Kellogg’s, and others locked in. Her net worth, which had been negligible before Rio, began its climb — tracked by outlets over the decade from a few million to roughly $25 million by 2025–26.

Tokyo 2020 and the Twisties

The Tokyo Games, held in 2021, were supposed to be her coronation. After a shaky vault in the team final, Biles withdrew from most of her events, citing “the twisties” — a dangerous loss of spatial awareness mid-twist that gymnasts describe as their mind and body disconnecting in the air. Continuing would have risked serious injury.

She still left Tokyo with two medals — team silver and beam bronze — but the decision detonated a global argument about athletes and mental health. Critics called her a quitter. The response that mattered came from athletes themselves, who described exactly how terrifying the twisties are: landing a double-twist blind can break a neck.

Her withdrawal did something else: it made her human to sponsors. Within months she signed with Athleta, Gap’s women’s athletic brand, leaving Nike explicitly to back a company whose values centered athlete wellbeing and mental health. The move became the template for her brand — and her fortune.

The Comeback: Antwerp 2023 and Paris 2024

After a two-year break, Biles returned to competition in August 2023. She won her record eighth U.S. national all-around title, then took the World Championships in Antwerp — team gold, all-around gold, beam gold, floor gold, vault silver. Her world medal count hit 30, with 23 gold, the most any gymnast has ever won at Worlds. The Laureus Academy named her the 2024 World Comeback of the Year.

Paris 2024 finished the story arc. Biles led the “Golden Girls” U.S. team to gold, won the individual all-around, defended her vault title with the Yurchenko double pike, and took silver on floor behind Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade. Her 11 Olympic medals — seven gold — made her the most decorated U.S. gymnast at the Olympics ever. In May 2026 she was named Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year for 2025, her fourth win, tying Serena Williams’ all-time record.

The Five Skills That Bear Her Name

When a gymnast successfully performs a new element at a World Championships or Olympics, it gets named for her in the Code of Points. Biles has five — across four of the five events, an unmatched spread. No competitor’s biography lists anything like it.

Simone Biles’ Net Worth in 2026: Where the Million Comes From

The medals paid almost nothing. U.S. Olympic medal bonuses are $37,500 for gold, $22,500 for silver, $15,000 for bronze — Parade calculated her entire career haul from Olympic prize money at roughly $147,500. The fortune came from what the medals made possible.

Per Forbes, Biles earns approximately $10–11 million per year from endorsements alone. The roster is unusually stable for an athlete a decade into a career: Athleta (her flagship apparel deal, signed 2021 after she left Nike), Visa, United Airlines, Powerade, GK Elite, Uber Eats, and MasterClass. The Athleta partnership alone includes her own sportswear line — a deal structure, not a flat fee, which is why estimates cluster around $25 million rather than a single number.

Then there is the tour business. Biles headlined the Gold Over America Tour in 2021 and again in 2024 — an entertainment-first, arena-scale gymnastics production she co-created, not a federation fundraiser. Athleta presents it; sponsors buy in; Biles gets a headliner’s cut. Add speaking engagements, book royalties from her memoir “Courage to Soar,” and a Texas home she has documented building on social media, and the $25 million figure — reported by Parade, trendnewsworld, and multiple 2026 outlets — holds up as the consensus estimate.

Jonathan Owens: The Husband

Biles met NFL safety Jonathan Owens on the dating app Raya in March 2020. He was an undrafted free agent who had clawed his way onto NFL rosters out of Missouri Western State — the Houston Texans, Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, and, for the 2026 season, the Indianapolis Colts. They married in a courthouse ceremony on April 22, 2023, followed by a destination celebration in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.

Owens’ own finances are modest by NFL standards: contract-tracking sites Spotrac and Over The Cap put his career earnings above $8.8 million, with an estimated net worth around $2 million. Combined, the couple’s estimated wealth lands near $27 million — one of the highest-earning athlete couples in American sports, and the money is overwhelmingly hers.

The marriage shows up constantly in the 2028 decision. Biles told the AP in September 2026 that the couple wants a family, and that elite training’s impact on her reproductive health is a real factor. Her former teammate Joscelyn Roberson’s advice, as Biles quoted it: “Stay at your house and stay with your husband.”

Advocacy: The Nassar Testimony and Mental Health

In September 2021, Biles testified before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee about the FBI’s handling of the Larry Nassar sexual-abuse case. She was a survivor; she said the system that was supposed to protect gymnasts had failed them, and that she blamed the culture as much as the man. It was the heaviest public moment of her life, and she chose to be there.

The through-line of her off-mat career is the athlete as a person, not a machine. The Tokyo withdrawal normalized mental-health decisions for a generation of athletes. In July 2022 she received the Presidential Medal of Freedom — at 25, the youngest recipient in the award’s history — cited for her athletic dominance and her advocacy.

Will Simone Biles Compete at LA 2028?

As of late September 2026, she still hasn’t decided — and she told the Associated Press the question wakes her up in the middle of the night. “I feel like it’s kind of in the works which way I’m leaning towards,” the 29-year-old said. The lure of competing at home in Los Angeles is, she admitted, “very real.”

The math is not on her side: she will be 31 when the flame is lit in July 2028, ancient by gymnastics standards. But the company is changing the calculation — teammates Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, and Jade Carey are all pointing toward LA, and former UCLA star Katelyn Ohashi returned to elite competition in July 2026 after a 13-year break, a comeback that clearly tempted Biles. If she returns, she would become the first American gymnast to compete at four Olympics.

“It would be so much fun,” she told the AP. “But I still have to weigh the options.”

Records and Career Medals at a Glance

Biles owns more major championship medals than any gymnast who ever lived: 41 combined Olympic and World medals — 30 of them gold — surpassing the record she once shared with Soviet legend Larisa Latynina. She is a six-time world all-around champion (2013–15, 2018–19, 2023), an eight-time U.S. national all-around champion, and the only woman to win six world floor titles and four world beam titles.

Sources & Reporting

Figures in this profile reflect reporting through October 2026. Key sources: The Associated Press (the September 29, 2026 interview on her undecided 2028 plans and Roberson’s “stay with your husband” advice); Parade (the $25 million estimate and the $147,500 Olympic prize-money calculation); Forbes (the $10–11 million annual endorsement figure); Britannica (early life, adoption, Bannon’s Gymnastix, Aimee Boorman); Wikipedia’s cited gymnastics records (11 Olympic medals, 30 Worlds medals, five eponymous skills); Spotrac / Over The Cap (Jonathan Owens’ $8.8M+ career earnings); Yardbarker / Laureus (2025 Sportswoman of the Year, fourth win tying Serena Williams). Where outlets disagree, the article explains why and publishes a range rather than picking a side.

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