Michael Che Shares Larry Nassar Sexual Assault Joke Mocking Simone Biles, Sparks Outrage

TW: Sexual Assault

Comedian Michael Che is under fire for making cruel and sexist jokes about Olympic gymnast Simone Biles. The following article contains content that may be triggering for some readers.

Michael Che recently made offensive, sexist comments about Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles on social media. Wanting to benefit from Biles’ mental health issues, which caused her to withdraw from the all-around competition at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, Che made a vulgar attempt at comedy. On July 29, he wrote on his Instagram story, “Man, I wanna make fun of Simone Biles. I got like 3 minutes of Simone Biles jokes in my head. I’m going to the cellar tonight to say them into a microphone. As the dorky kids say, I’m choosing violence.”

Che also posted screenshots of direct messages from people giving him ideas for jokes. One of them was about Biles’ abuser, Larry Nassar, the United States women’s national gymnastics team doctor. Nassar sexually abused hundreds of girls and young women whom he was supposed to protect. The user wrote that Nassar is similar to Biles in that “He had to quit doing what he loved at the pinnacle of his career because of mounting pressure.” Che liked the joke enough to post it on his Instagram story and rank it nine points out of ten.

After the backlash, Che made a post claiming he was “hacked.” Later, he deleted all posts from his Instagram account.

This isn’t the first time Che has degraded women. According to HuffPost, he made tasteless remarks about a social experiment video. In the video, a woman experienced harassment and catcalls in public. Che wrote on Instagram, “I wanna apologize to all the women that I’ve harassed with statements like ‘hi’ or ‘have a nice day or ‘you’re beautiful.'” He then referenced times where fans would come up to him and yell at him to take pictures or say something funny. Che sarcastically added, “But even that is nothing like the harassment of having a complete stranger tell me to ‘smile.’”

Many women, especially fans of Biles, took to Twitter to show their support and hold Che accountable for his insults.

Be sure to support Simone Biles on Instagram and Twitter.