A Complete Timeline of Simone Biles and Jonathan Owens’ Relationship

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 of all time, in Biles’ 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, of course. “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.”

See Simone Biles and Jonathan Owens’ relationship timeline, below.

March 2020

Biles and Owens connected on Raya just before the pandemic lockdown began. But when they slid into each other’s DMs, Owens didn’t realize at first that he was in the presence of greatness. “I didn’t know who she was,” he told Texas Monthly. “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. “I lived, I traveled, I did things I couldn’t do because of gymnastics,” she says of that time. “I just had fun.”

August 2020

After a few months of dating, the couple made it Instagram official. Biles posted a cute photo of the two with the caption, “It’s just us.” 

A few weeks later, she followed that with another photo that was captioned, “The only time I fall is when he’s there to catch me.” 

September 2020

Biles made her Instagram debut on Owens’s feed a month later. He captioned the post, “Now you rockin with a real one.” 

December 2020

Biles and Owens spent Christmas and New Year’s Eve together. “Always good to spend Christmas with the fam,” Owens wrote in the caption of his photo, which showed the couple wearing matching pajamas. In between the holidays, Biles cheered on her NFL player boyfriend at a game.