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Simone Biles and Aly Raisman are not dating, despite reports alleging the Olympians are “more than just platonic friends.” Gossip Cop can correct the claim.
A Friday headline from MediaTakeOut reads, “Brazilian NEWS MAG Is Suggesting That Olympic Gymnasts Simone Biles And Aly Raisman… Are MORE THAN JUST ‘PLATONIC’ Friends!!!” It’s said in the accompanying article, “A popular BRAZILIAN GOSSIP MAG is speculating that Olympic gymnasts Simone Biles And Aly Raisman are more than just BEST FRIENDS, but they might in fact be DATING too.”
“The report, which is published in one of Rio’s most NOTORIOUS gossip dailies, says that they suspect that the two ladies’ close relationship stems from a romantic love that the women share for each other,” says the webloid. “The paper did NOT offer any evidence that the two were in a relationship, other than speculation.” The site adds, “We did think it was kind of WEIRD when Simone said that she was MORE HAPPY about Aly’s win than her own. Hmmmm… now that you mention it…”
First, off, if the Brazilian gossip outlet “did not offer any evidence that the two were in a relationship,” then there was no reason for MediaFakeOut to pick up the story, except to be sensational and outrageous. Furthermore, MTO is so clueless, it illustrated its post with a photo of Biles and Laurie Hernandez, another member of the U.S. gymnastics team who is most definitely not Raisman. Lastly, the reason why Biles was so excited for Raisman’s win was because Raisman was making a huge comeback after suffering a heartbreaking tie-breaker loss at the 2012 Olympics.
Biles and Raisman obviously spend a lot of time together, and they’ll continue to as they set out on the new edition of the Kellogg’s Tour of Gymnastics Champions. But misconstruing their friendship and working relationship for something else is just wrong.
