Love is in the air — even when it’s long-distance! Olympian Simone Biles gushed over boyfriend Jonathan Owens‘ sweet gesture on Friday, September 17, amid her national gymnastics tour with fellow gymnasts from Team USA.
“Look what arrived at my hotel,” the 24-year-old raved alongside an Instagram Story photo of a box of stunning red roses gifted to her by the NFL player, 26. “STOP. Why are you the sweetest boyfriend. I’m so blessed to be loved by you. I miss you so much already.”
The Ohio native and the Houston Texans player started dating in August 2020. Their relationship came five months after Simone split from longtime boyfriend and fellow gymnast Stacey Ervin Jr.
“[Jonathan] would say I slid into his DMs. I saw him and I was like, ‘Oh, he’s pretty cute,’ so I said hi,” the four-time Olympic gold medalist told the Wall Street Journal in August 2021 about how she and the athlete met. “And then, I saw that he was in the Houston area, so we started chatting a little bit, and then, we went to hang out a week or two later.”
The dynamic duo has been inseparable ever since, and they even celebrated their one-year anniversary this summer. “He’s a real man. I love him. We have a great time together,” Simone gushed over the Missouri native during a January 2021 video call interview on the Today show. “Our personalities match right up. We have the same sense of humor. He’s just great. He’s an athlete, too, so we really understand each other, and I think that’s why our relationship has been seamless.”
During the third episode of Simone’s Facebook Watch series, Simone vs. Herself, Jonathan revealed he actually didn’t know the elite athlete was famous when they first met. “Her work ethic was really the first thing that caught my eye,” he explained at the time. “I never really watched gymnastics before I first started talking to her. When I met her, I honestly didn’t know who she was.”
He continued, “It was just like, ‘Oh, she has a lot of followers — she must be pretty good or something.’ That’s how I would tell people and they’d be like: ‘Simone Biles?! You for real, the gymnast?!’ And I’m like, ‘Man, she’s good like that?!’”