THINK BEFORE TWEET

Al Trautwig Apologizes for Simone Biles Adoption Tweet

Suggested her adoptive parents aren’t her parents.

NBC Sports commentator Al Trautwig has apologized for his comments suggesting U.S. Olympic gymnast Simone Biles’s adoptive parents are not really her mother and father. On Sunday evening, the sports pundit referred to Ron and Nellie Biles as the athlete’s grandparents, even though the couple adopted Simone and her younger sister, Adria, in 2001 after several stints in foster care. When corrected by a viewer on Twitter that he should’ve referred to them as Simone’s parents, Trautwig replied: “They may be mom and dad but they are NOT her parents.” After much outcry and a hashtag calling for his firing, the commentator apologized. “I regret that I wasn’t more clear in my wording on the air,” he said in a statement. “I compounded the error on Twitter, which I quickly corrected. To set the record straight, Ron and Nellie are Simone’s parents.”