The image the world sees in Paris – Simone Biles wrapped in stars and stripes, defying gravity, clutching another Olympic gold – is only the final frame of a far harsher film. Before the medals and endorsements, there was a three-year-old removed from a home where addiction ruled, a child who remembers the cat being fed while she and her siblings went hungry. Foster care, unusually, kept the four children together, and visits from Ronald and Nellie Biles slowly turned into something permanent: adoption, stability, and a home where meals were regular and love was louder than the past.

A canceled field trip that rerouted to a gym became destiny. Simone mimicked the older girls, flipping her way from anonymity to greatness while her grandparents never missed a meet, their cheers anchoring her through twisties, pressure, and global scrutiny. Today, the woman who once starved now pours herself into Friends of the Children, fighting for kids whose stories look like hers once did. In the stands, her husband’s shirt blazes with her face, her grandmother’s smile beams, and her grandfather’s binoculars hide his tears as he watches the little girl he saved rewrite what survival can look like.