When Olympic gymnast Simone Biles was told she wasn't letting her winning personality shine through during her routines on "Dancing With the Stars," the four-time gold medalist reminded everyone that she knows a thing or two about winning.
The criticisms came after Biles performed her first dance, a high-energy foxtrot, Monday night.
The 20-year-old may have been beaming during the dance, but the panel wasn't so sure about her real emotions — or her ability to show a range.
"Your skills are unquestionable," Carrie Ann Inaba told her. "You hit every line with precision and perfection. But once again, I'm going to come back to performance and authenticity about who you are when you perform. ... You have this beautiful smile and you are a megastar with your energy, but once in a while, there's beauty without a smile. There's beauty in pain and all of the other emotions, and I'd like to see more of that."
Judge Julianne Hough agreed, adding, "I don’t know if the smile is authentic because you want to smile, or if it's just because you rehearsed it that way. ... I really just want to see some rawness come out."
At first, Biles pointed out that the judges might just be looking for emotions she hasn't felt yet.
"I've lived in a gym 14 years of my life, so it's hard to show something I've never felt before," she said.
But after returning for a second performance, an intense and moody paso doble, Biles got blunt when asked about the fact that she wasn't even smiling about some positive comments she received.
"Smiling doesn't win you gold medals," she told host Tom Bergeron.
And she should know!
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