Simone Biles Says the "Haters Hate" Her GOAT Nickname

Gold medalist Simone Biles of Team United States poses with a necklace in the likeness of a goat after competing in the Artistic Gymnastics Women's All-Around Final on day six of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Bercy Arena on August 01, 2024 in Paris, France — (Image credit: Getty Images)

Simone Biles doesn't mind her haters—if anything, they fuel her desire to be the best gymnast she can be.

The Olympic champion proved this while speaking about her goat-shaped diamond necklace on Thursday, after she won yet another gold medal in Paris—this time at the all-around gymnastics final. The necklace is a tongue-in-cheek reference to her nickname, the GOAT, which of course means the greatest of all time.

"It's a little ode, I mean a lot of people love it, they always call me the GOAT, so I thought it would be really special if I got one made," Biles told the BBC, as reported by People.

"And the haters hate it so I love that even more and it's just a special part of me that I have here, as well as in the village I have like a stuffed goat, just to get a reminder: 'You can go out there, you can do it, you've done it before, so let's go.'"

Simone Biles shows off her goat pendant at the Paris Olympics.

After her Thursday victory, Biles held up her symbolic pendant for the cameras to see, and of course layered it with another pretty important accessory: her newest gold medal.

The necklace comes courtesy of Jamie Heller Fine Jewelry, and is bedazzled with a whopping 546 diamonds—because the best deserves the best.

It's not even the first time this week that Biles has shown how unbothered she is by the haters. In fact, after Team USA won the artistic gymnastics women's team final on Tuesday, the gymnast captioned an Instagram photo celebrating the victory, "lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions."

Fans immediately interpreted this caption as being a clap back to former teammate MyKayla Skinner's comments about USA gymnasts these days not having a "work ethic." After that, Biles also tweeted that she'd "been blocked"—with most people assuming this was by Skinner, though she didn't spell it out.

Anyway, big congrats to Team USA!!!

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Iris Goldsztajn is a London-based journalist, editor and author. She is the morning editor at Marie Claire, and her work has appeared in the likes of British Vogue, InStyle, Cosmopolitan, Refinery29 and SELF. Iris writes about everything from celebrity news and relationship advice to the pitfalls of diet culture and the joys of exercise. She has many opinions on Harry Styles, and can typically be found eating her body weight in cheap chocolate.