The greatest gymnast of all time and the NFL safety have the sweetest love story. “This was a match made in heaven,” he says.
Simone Biles and Jonathan Owens met the way most couples do these days: on an app. The Olympic gymnast and Houston Texans safety connected just before the pandemic and, in the time since, have built a loving relationship that’s all about lifting each other up.
Besides being incredible athletes—the greatest gymnast of all time, in Biles’s case—the two have bonded over their shared sense of humor and their love for their pets. (She has two bulldogs; he has one.) “I’ll show up at her house, and her dogs will peek around her looking for my dog,” Owens told Texas Monthly in an interview. “They’ve become best friends.”
Biles and Owens are best friends too. “This was a match made in heaven,” he gushed to Texas Monthly. “There’s no better person for me. She loves me, she’s so affectionate. I just love that. And it’s just intoxicating seeing how much work she puts into everything.
Biles and Owens connect on Raya just before the pandemic lockdown begins. But when they slide into each other’s DMs, Owens doesn’t realize at first that he is in the presence of greatness. “I didn’t know who she was,” he told Texas Monthly in June 2021. “I just hadn’t heard of her, and when I told her that, that’s one of the things she liked.”
He added that the timing—which easily could have ended the relationship before it even began—actually helped them build a foundation. “We ended up hanging out right before the pandemic,” he said. “It was one of the few times in her life where everything was just shut off and she couldn’t do anything. So we used it to get to know each other—really get to know each other. It created our bond and made it stronger. Now I’m so thankful.”
Biles echoed this in her own cover interview with Glamour in 2021. “I lived, I traveled, I did things I couldn’t do because of gymnastics,” she said of that time. “I just had fun.”
August 2020
After a few months of dating, the couple make it Instagram-official. Biles posts a cute photo of the two with the caption “It’s just us.”
During their trip, Owens shares a tribute to his girlfriend for her 25th birthday, writing, “Want to wish my beautiful fiancée a happy birthday!!! What’s a better place to bring it in than paradise 🤪🍾 Looking forward to making endless memories with you on this journey of life together, everything happens for a reason and it’s obvious we were made for each other ❤️ Here’s to your best birthday yet, and we just getting started!!!! More surprises to come 👀😘 I love you more than you would ever know baby ❤️❤️ #twentyfiiiiine 🥵.”
