For the bulk of his NFL career, Jonathan Owens has primarily been known as Simone Biles’ significant other.
But as it turns out, the fifth-year safety had no idea what he was getting into when he first matched with his future wife on the dating app Raya nearly four years ago.
“I literally had the app for a couple days and she pops up,” Owens told Ryan Clark on The Pivot Podcast. “I’m like, ‘Let me see who this is. Gymnastics?’ I never really paid attention to gymnastics so it piqued my curiosity. So I’m like, ‘OK that’s a lot, I’ll see what’s up.’
“I didn’t know who she was at the time, but the first thing I saw was that she just had a bunch of [social media] followers, so in my mind I’m like, ‘OK, she’s gotta be good.”
How was it possible that Owens didn’t know who one of America’s most famous Olympians was? As he explained it, her star-making performance in the 2016 Summer Games coincided with an especially busy time in his life.
“When she won the Olympics, I was in college and we didn’t have NBC, we didn’t have Olympic channels and we’re in camp in late-July, early-August. So I’m not paying attention,” Owens said. “I never had a moment where I would have watched.”
“I know what I like, & I know what I want” Simone Biles
Record setting Olympian @simonebiles doesn’t just go after gold medals. She also went after her man @jowens. @packers safety didn’t pay much attention to gymnastics. So when he matched with some gymnast 😂😂😂 he decided… pic.twitter.com/ua0I9mYLbl
— Ryan Clark (@Realrclark25) December 21, 2023
From there, Owens made it clear that four-time Olympic gold medalist began pursuing him — and not the other way around. The rest, as they say, is history, as the couple got engaged in 2022 and were married earlier this year.
In the time since, any mention of Owens’ on-field performance with the Green Bay Packers has often included a reference to his much more famous spouse. It’s not often that an NFL player is overshadowed by his own wife, but the Missouri Western product made it clear that he believes he’s the “catch” in the relationship.
“I always say that the men are the catch,” Owens said. “I was afraid to commit. I was like, ‘It’s my third year, I’m trying to — it’s kind of early.’ But it happens when you least expect it. We hung out and we hit it off instantly.”
