Simone Biles former teammate shares plea to make her fans stop sending 'death threats'

Simone Biles' ex-teammate MyKayla Skinner has spoken out after the Olympic gold-medalist seemingly threw shade at her on Instagram a few weeks ago.

Following Team USA's gold win at the Olympics' group final on July 30, Biles celebrated the historical feat with an Instagram post and a sly caption that's largely speculated to have been a dig toward Skinner.

Underneath a carousel of group photos of Team USA, Biles captioned the post: "Lack of talent, lazy, Olympic champions."

Based on the comments, many seemed to understand Biles' caption as a reference to a since-deleted YouTube video posted by Skinner in June where she criticized the members of Team USA being sent to the Paris Olympics.

"Besides Simone, I feel like the talent and the depth just isn't like what it used to be," Skinner says in the deleted video.

"Just notice like, I mean, obviously a lot of girls don't work as hard. The girls just don't have the work ethic," she adds.

Since Biles' post, clips from Skinner's deleted YouTube video have gone viral online with fans pouring in to weigh their thoughts on the situation.

Although Skinner initially apologized for the video on July 3, she's since posted a video to her Instagram sharing that she's been receiving 'death threats' and 'hateful comments' and has asked Biles to address the issue with her fans.

"Simone, I am asking you directly and publicly, to please put a stop to this. Please ask your followers to stop, you have been an incredible champion for mental health awareness and a lot of people need your help now," Skinner says in the video.

"[My family and I] have been hurt and attacked in ways that I am certain you never intended," she adds.

Skinner further claimed that the situation has 'gotten out of hand' and alleged that 'threats of physical harm' have been made against her, her husband, and their daughter.

"The last thing I wanted to do was cause harm or offend our U.S. Olympic team," she said. "If Simone truly believes that I called our team lazy and lacking talent and if that's really how she feels, I am really heartbroken over it."

"Simone's latest post and others that followed it fueled another wave of hateful comments, DMs, articles, and emails," Skinner added. "Hate that includes death threats to me, my family, and even my agent. My family and my friends don't deserve to be caught in the crossfire here. They've done nothing."

"Watching people cheer on the bullying — which has led to threats of physical harm to me, my husband, and our daughter — is disgusting. So please at this point, I'm just asking for it to just stop for the sake of my family because enough is enough."

The former athlete also echoed several sentiments she made in her initial apology, reiterating that she takes '100% responsibility' for 'poorly articulating' her thoughts in the original video.