Indianapolis Colts safety Jonathan Owens says public criticism nearly broke him after his relationship with Olympic gymnast Simone Biles put him in the national spotlight, but he's learned to tune it out.
Owens, 31, sat down with The Athletic for a wide-ranging interview in which he described the toll that sudden fame and online hostility took on him during the early stages of his relationship with Biles. The NFL safety, who met the Olympic gold medalist on a dating app in 2020 and married her roughly three years later in Texas, said the scrutiny caught him off guard.
"It was tough at first because I'm a pretty quiet, private person," Owens told The Athletic.
The wave of attention wasn't just curiosity. It was hostile. Owens said critics mocked him as nothing more than an appendage to his wife's fame, calling him "Mr. Biles" and picking apart everything he did publicly.
"It almost makes you a shell of yourself, at first, because of all the criticism. They've got something to say about everything you do."
Owens described that period as his first real experience under the weight of public opinion, and he wasn't prepared for it.
Part of the backlash traced to an earlier appearance Owens made on The Pivot Podcast, where he said he had never heard of Biles before the two grew close. He also claimed that "the men" are the catch in any relationship. Those comments set off what the reporting described as a social media frenzy, drawing sharp criticism from fans who saw the remarks as dismissive of Biles' stature in American sports.
Owens told The Athletic he had his social media notifications turned off during the worst of it. He didn't even know how bad things had gotten until Biles herself flagged it.
"I didn't have my notifications on, and Simone was like, 'Have you been on your Instagram?'"
That moment, Owens said, was when the scale of the public reaction hit him.
Owens credited his wife with helping him reach a point where the noise no longer rattled him. He described her advice in blunt terms.
"But just my wife helping me get to a point of just [understanding] they're going to talk s*** either way it goes. So you might as well live your life how you want to."
That shift in mindset, from absorbing every insult to simply ignoring the crowd, is what Owens said allowed him to move forward. He framed the criticism not as a wound but as a side effect of something worth having.
"But that's what comes with it," Owens said. "You take the good with the bad, and at the end of the day, I'm living my dream."
Rather than dwelling on the attacks, Owens flipped the script entirely. He said being married to Biles reflects well on him, not the other way around.
"I take it as respect. You see who my wife is. Says a lot about me as well. Like, my confidence, and who I am as a person that she chose to be with me."
He went further, arguing that in NFL culture, a player's partner is seen as a reflection of his own standing.
"It's respect because, as a man in this field, [one of the] things they judge you on is who is your significant other. That says a lot about your confidence."
Owens, who previously played for the Chicago Bears before being traded to the Indianapolis Colts, is now settling into his new team. Biles was spotted on the sideline at a recent preseason game against the Atlanta Falcons and is reportedly planning to relocate to Indianapolis to be closer to her husband during the season.
Online mobs come and go. A man who knows who he is, and who chose him, doesn't need their approval.
