Self-reflection comes a little more easily when your brand is on fire. That was certainly the case for Simone Biles after a four-day thrashing for her betrayal of girls’ sports and ruthless takedown of Riley Gaines. With a Netflix series, lucrative endorsements, and public credibility on the line, the three-time Olympian finally released a statement to salvage what’s left of her legacy. And while there’s some debate about whether the post qualifies as an apology, there’s none about where she still stands: on the side of trans athletes.

After reaming the former All-American swimmer as “sick,” “a sore loser,” and “bully” for objecting to men on women’s teams and in women’s spaces, Biles was savaged across every platform by everyone from big-name athletes to major media personalities. Her vicious tone, a shocking departure from the sweetheart image she’d built over the last several years, took Americans completely aback. Dripping with vitriol, she told Riley to “bully someone your own size, which would ironically be a male.”

Gaines, who was initially excited to see the notification that Simone had replied to one of her posts, had to read the tweet multiple times to believe it. “At that moment, I was so disappointed,” the former University of Kentucky swimmer admitted. “What [bothered] me is knowing the platform she has and how she was so quick and venomous to sell out young girls like my little sister.”

So were tens of millions of Americans. If Biles thought her celebrity status was enough to carry the day for her classless attack, she was sorely mistaken. Angry backlash pressed in from all corners — so suffocating that Riley confessed at one point that she “almost felt sorry for her.” In full-on damage control mode, the Olympian tried to put out some of the fires.

“I wanted to follow up from my last tweets,” Biles said Tuesday afternoon. “I’ve always believed competitive equity & inclusivity are both essential in sport. The current system doesn’t adequately balance these important principles, which often leads to frustration and heated exchanges, and it didn’t help for me to get personal with Riley, which I apologize for.”

She continued, “These are sensitive, complicated issues that I truly don’t have the answers or solutions to, but I believe it starts with empathy and respect. I was not advocating for policies that compromise fairness in women’s sports. My objection is to be singling out children for public scrutiny in ways that feel personal and harmful. Individual athletes — especially kids — should never be the focus of criticism of a flawed system they have no control over. I believe sports organizations have a responsibility to come up with rules supporting inclusion while maintaining fair competition. We all want a future for sport that is fair, inclusive, and respectful.”

While her tone was more respectful, no one is quite sure what to make of the post. Although it included an apology of sorts, it did nothing to change her overarching position — which is that boys’ feelings should always trump girls’ rights. She either doesn’t understand or refuses to acknowledge that there’s no scenario where “compromise” and “inclusion” can co-exist with fairness in this situation. Either girls are being deprived of their opportunities, titles, and privacy — or they’re not. Nothing about it is “sensitive” or “complicated.” If Biles wants to cater to the trans-identifying children — who she obviously sees as the real victims here, not the girls cheated out of medals, podiums, and records — then that will always come at the expense of the equal playing field she claims to want.

To her continued credit, Riley replied to Simone with the grace and integrity she’s exhibited throughout this entire controversy. And, as OutKick’s Mike Gunzelman Outkick noticed, “Riley’s response didn’t take four days. It took less than one hour.” Proving again that she’s the bigger person, she answered back, “I accept Simone’s apology for the personal attacks including the ones where she body-shamed me. I know she knows what this feels like. She’s still the greatest female gymnast of all time.” But, she insisted, there are still a couple of things that deserve more clarity.

“Sports ARE inclusive by nature,” Gaines insisted. “Anyone can and everyone SHOULD play sports. Competition, on the other hand and by definition, is exclusive. So the idea of ‘competitive equity’ is nonsensical. Secondly,” she argued, “the boys are publicly humiliating the girls. To suggest that women and girls must be silent or ignore a boy who is PUBLICLY hurting or humiliating them is wrong. You can’t have any empathy and compassion for the girls if you’re ignoring when young men are harming or abusing them,” she said before adding, “I am not ashamed to be a voice for the voiceless.”

“Lastly,” Riley pointed out, “I agree with you that the blame is on the lawmakers and leaders at the top. Precisely why I’m suing the NCAA and support candidates who vow to stand with women. That’s why I joined Donald Trump at the signing of his Executive Order. I didn’t see you there or championing this effort with your platform,” she observed. “Women’s sports can’t be used as an excuse for girls to center the feelings and validation of men and boys,” Gaines reiterated. “I welcome you to the fight to support fair sports and a future for female athletes. Little girls deserve the same shot to achieve that you had.”

Meanwhile, the social media world wasn’t nearly as generous. Most Americans not only questioned Biles’s sincerity but ripped the statement as a desperate PR stunt. So many people slammed the message as a product of Simone’s crisis management team that “Your PR” was trending in sports on Tuesday. Media heavyweights like Megyn Kelly agreed that nothing about it felt authentic. More importantly, she replied to Riley, “[Y]ou still won’t see her at any of these events standing up for girls because not one word of that ‘apology’ was sincere, even though to your credit you are too classy to say it.”

Fellow athletes were just as brutal. Olympian Sharon Davies fired back, “The hypocrisy of saying ‘don’t make it personal’ after you did exactly that is mind blowing, without any self awareness & disingenuous at best. Riley & many like her, including myself with 50yrs in Olympic sport & an Olympic medal have been saying for years now you cannot have fairness for female athletes of any level or age, if you include males. Males, no matter how they identify, have never ever been excluded from sport. … What they want is an unfair & often dangerous advantage. This does not go both ways. We are not,” she stressed, “a support structure for males with gender dysphoria — who think or want to be, something they are not. In Sport we use our bodies, not our feelings. Women & girls are as worthy of their own safe but most important fair sport as men. We are worthy of our own category…”

University of Kentucky swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler couldn’t help but notice the double standard. “So just to clarify…you’re saying Riley Gaines shouldn’t call out men in women’s sports because it feels ‘too personal.’ What about how deeply personal it is for the girls being displaced, overlooked, & silenced? … You say you weren’t advocating for unfairness in women’s sports. But in the same breath, you criticize the only people actually fighting for fairness. So what are you advocating for?” she asked. “Silence? Appeasement? A system where girls just smile & swallow their losses to protect someone else’s feelings?”

Skateboarder Taylor Silverman, who lost first place and the prize money that went with it to a man in 2021, warned, “When you try to please everyone out of fear it makes you look worse. A swing and a miss from your PR team.” Others slammed the “face-saving, half-hearted” post as something Biles didn’t even write. They believe, and perhaps rightly, that the real Simone is the one we saw Friday.

Unfortunately for Biles, Megan Basham noted, “It’s too late. It is the tweets, not the carefully crafted PR statement, that everyone is going to remember. And that in the moment when little girls needed courage from the women who went before them, you massively let them down.”

The only way to know if Simone’s regret is genuine is if she actually takes the opportunity to link arms with the courageous women who’ve been fighting from the beginning. Until then, Concerned Women for America’s Doreen Denny told The Washington Stand, “Let this be a warning to the celebrity elite who float in the same Biles bubble of trans dogma. Trying to defend the indefensible is only begging for trouble.” Let’s not forget, she continued, “A vast majority of Americans are no longer fooled by virtue signaling about ‘inclusion.’ We see the fallout of trans ideology playing out in real time, decimating opportunities for girls in their own sports.”

“Simone might be given a second chance,” Denny conceded, “but if America’s Olympic sweetheart can’t stand up for female athletes, she should stand on the sidelines and keep her mouth shut.”