Olympic gymnastic gold medalist Simone Biles won our hearts in 2016—and this year on Dancing With the Stars, she’s winning them all over again. This week, she danced with her partner Sasha Farber to the popular Christian song, “Good Good Father”—and homage to her adoptive dad, who is her biological grandfather. In the heart-wrenching video piece leading up to the dance, Biles explains why the theme, “My Most Memorable Year” led her to choose not 2016, when all her Olympic dreams came true, but the year 2000, when she was adopted.
“Growing up, my biological mom was suffering from drug and alcohol abuse and she was in and out of jail,” Biles explained. “I never had mom to run to. I do remember always being hungry and afraid. At 3 years old, I was placed in foster care.”
Her tears cut straight to the heart as she talks about getting visits from her then-grandpa while she was in a foster home.
“Whenever we had visits with my grandpa, I was so excited,” she said, unable to keep her composure. “That was the person I always wanted to see walk in to the foster home.”
