Olympic breakdancer Raygun apologizes to the entire breakdancing community for her controversial performance at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
Raygun Apologizes To Breaking Community
On Wednesday (Sep. 4), the Olympic breakdancer Rachel Gunn, who goes by her b-girl name Raygun, sat down for an interview with the Australian talk show The Project to discuss the blowback she experienced following her controversial performance in Paris. Host Waleed Aly read a few of the criticisms off to Raygun, including one from Australian rap pioneer Spice that blamed Raygun for pushing the breaking scene back “into the dark ages.”
“Yeah, look it is really sad to hear those criticisms,” Raygun began around the nine-minute mark. “I am very sorry for the backlash that the community has experienced, but I can’t control how people react. Unfortunately, we just need some more resources in Australia for us to have a chance to beat world champions. Historically, unfortunately, we haven’t had the best track record of winning world championships, so I don’t think that’s just on me.”
Raygun also responded to the online conspiracies that exploded in the wake of her performance, including one that claims her husband and coach Samuel Free rigged the selection process.
“The conspiracy theories were just awful,” Raygun said. “That was upsetting because it wasn’t just people who didn’t understand breaking and were just angry about my performance, it was people now attacking our reputation and our integrity. None of them were grounded in any kind of facts and obviously they’re still circulating.”
When asked once and for all how she qualified for the Olympic games, Raygun said, “I won the Oceania Championships. It was a direct qualifier.”
Read More: Controversial Breakdancer Raygun Did Not Cheat Her Way to 2024 Olympics – Here’s How She Qualified
Raygun Backlash Explodes After Performance
Raygun went viral at the Olympics for doing what some people described as kangaroo hops and rolling around on the ground. As a result, the performance was met with both uproarious clowning as well as seething hatred around the internet. Social media was letting up with the memes. Tweets mocking her like “‘These edibles ain’t working!'” along with the words “*15 minutes later*” to compare Raygun’s moves to the effects drugs have on the body were posted.
Many people questioned how she could have possibly qualified for the Olympic games, and matters were made worse after a viral petition began circulating around the internet accusing Raygun of “unethical conduct.” The petition accumulated over 28,000 signatures before being taken down.
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Watch Raygun’s interview below.
