Even though the Rio Olympics have ended and the gold medal winning US gymnastics team have returned home, the Final Five would like us all to know that they are a team first and foremost.
When E! News reporter Maria Menounos asked Aly Raisman, Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas, Laurie Hernandez and Madison Kocian — aka everyone's favorite squad — what it was like being pit against each other at the competition, Aly was quick to respond, "We don’t like it."
Some critics created a truly unfair narrative that there might be bad blood between the team after only Simone and Aly were allowed to compete in the gymnastics all-around competition. Even though Gabby ranked third out of every other gymnast in the qualifiers, Olympics rules limit two teammates per country moving on to the finals.
The media and Twitterverse then went on criticized Gabby for everything from her hair to not putting her hand on heart during the national anthem to supposedly not cheering hard enough for her teammates while sitting in the stands. Note: The narrative that the young women weren't supportive of one another was fictional. As Gabby told USA Today, "I always will support them and respect them and everything that they do. So I never want anyone to take it as I was jealous, or I wanted attention. Never."
And Simone, who won a whopping FIVE medals (four gold), wasted no time telling E! that the media's talk that they aren't a united team is just talk. "We’re a team so we didn’t pay attention to it,” Simone said. “They did that themselves but we were well put-together as a team and I think they realized that.”
Aly continued, "We're representing USA as best as we can. So if one of us gets a gold, we're happy, because it's one more for Team USA. We all support each other, we all have fun, I know that sounds cheesy. People don't always believe it, but we know that we're happy, we know that we love each other so that's all that matters."
Sorry drama lovers. While you're getting over your idle gossip about in-fighting, the Final Five is probably going to be on vacation together celebrating all of their accomplishments.
Related: The 'Final Five' Says They'll Compete in 2020 Tokyo Olympics
