On Tuesday, July 30, after her historic win at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Simone Biles shared an Instagram story of Ronald Biles watching her compete.

“My dad & his binoculars is so freaking cute,” Simone writes of her biological grandfather, who along with his wife adopted the athlete – now an eight-time Olympic medallist – after she was left in foster care when she was only three.

Simone, the most decorated American gymnast, opened up about her childhood and how she and her siblings were starving in the care of her biological mother who was “struggling with drug and alcohol abuse.” Keep reading to learn about this inspiring athlete!

Long before 26-year-old Simone Biles was flipping, launching, and spinning, she lived in foster care with her siblings, Adria, Tevin, and Ashley.

Simone’s birth mother Shanon was dependent on alcohol and drugs, and unable to care for her four children.

“It was hard to give up my kids but I had to do what I had to, I wasn’t able to care for them,” Shanon tells the Daily Mail, adding the kid’s father – also an addict – was absent.

Speaking with CNN, Simone candidly speaks of her experience as a child and the “hardships” she experienced with her addict mom.

“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 tells CNN.

Two decades later, she still has vivid memories of starving.

“I just remember, like, us as kids being so hungry and then I just remember this cat that would get fed and not like…us,” she shares in the clip. “And so we were taken and, thankfully, we actually got to stay in one foster home and we were all together…it was some of the best times ever. We were just so excited.”

Adding to that excitement were the frequent visits from her grandparents, Ronald and Nellie Biles, who adopted Simone (then six), and her little sister Adria, who is now 24.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2987343974844447

“It really doesn’t matter where we are, which competition it is, she knows where we’re sitting. She can hear me, I know that because I scream so loud,” the proud Nellie shares in the Facebook clip.

And when Simone scanned the Bercy Arena in Paris for her parents, she saw Owens, wearing a colorful t-shirt with his wife’s images, seated next to Nellie, wearing a huge smile, and her dad, whose face is hidden by binoculars that he used to watch his daughter.