The most memorable year of Simone Biles‘ life was not 2016. It was 2000, when she was placed in foster care.
Biles broke into tears when recalling her difficult childhood in a “Dancing with the Stars” video interview for Monday night’s episode.
“My biological mom was suffering from drug and alcohol abuse, and she was in and out of jail,” Biles said. “I never had mom to run to. … I do remember always being hungry and afraid.”
From Biles’ book, “Courage to Soar:”
“Most people might think that at age three I was too young to know what it meant to be placed into foster care, but the truth is I understood everything. When the social worker piled the four of us into her car, I knew exactly what was going on. We were going to live with a new family, and we didn’t know if we’d like it there. I think we were all a little scared, because none of us said a word during the car ride. Yet as clearly as I remember the heavy silence in the backseat of that car, with Ashley holding four-month-old Adria on her lap, the rest of my foster care memories are fuzzy images.”
Biles and three siblings first went to live with her grandfather, Ron, and his wife, Nellie, in March 2000. The two older siblings wanted to return to their mother, and with social workers saying Ron and Nellie had to keep all four children or none at all, the four children all went back to foster care.
Ron and Nellie were finally able to adopt Biles and younger sister Adria when Biles was 6.
“My parents saved me,” Biles said.
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