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The Evil of Cowardice
Raygun has revealed that she knew straight after her disastrous Olympic Games performance that her life would change forever.
The embattled breakdancer, 37, became an overnight sensation for her comical routine at the 2024 Paris Olympics, which became the event’s most talked-about moment.
The Australian hopped like a kangaroo and slid across the floor during her bizarre performance, and she faced an onslaught of ridicule online, with the likes of Adele and Jimmy Fallon wading into the viral moment.
The internet sensation has kept a relatively low profile since her performance last month, but has now given a world-first TV interview on the viral moment, appearing on The Project on Wednesday to discuss the ordeal with host Waleed Aly.
During the tell-all interview, Raygun said she knew that she was in for a turbulent time after receiving a concerning message from an Australia Olympic Committee official after her routine.
‘As soon as I finished, you know, my rounds, my media liaison from the AOC said, “Oh, there’s a bit of a storm brewing on social media. You might want to go off socials,”‘ she said.
Rachael Gunn has opened up on her Olympic Games experience in Paris
‘I was like, “OK.” I didn’t understand the scale of it. I did preview some comments and I was like, “Oh, no,” and this kind of sick feeling started, started coming out.
‘I was like, “Oh, goodness! What has happened?”‘
Raygun admitted that she has not watched her performance back, as she addressed the ‘tough’ backlash.
‘I haven’t watched it back, no. That’s not unusual for me, though. I’m not great at watching back my battles,’ she shared.
‘It’s still gonna take some time. I think I’ve seen little bits and pieces, but, yeah, I’ll watch it eventually.’
Amid claims she could nab a string of TV offers, Raygun said she has no desire to remain in the spotlight and plans to take a step back from competing.
‘I don’t think I’ll be competing for a while. Not really wanting to be in the spotlight, breaking, competing. But I… You know, it’s been nice,’ she shared.
She also believes that the majority of the negative reaction stems from a lack of understanding of breaking from the general public.
‘A lot of the responses, though, is also just due to people not being very familiar with breaking and the diversity of approaches in breaking,’ she went on.
‘It was so fantastic that the next day the judging chair, MG, came out and explained that in the breaking community what I did actually wasn’t very shocking.
‘You know, it’s just a different approach in breaking. You have the athletic-style breakers and you also have the more artistic-style breakers and all of them are very valid.’
The Australian breakdancer received a barrage of abuse for her performance in Paris
She said that she was made aware immediately that a ‘storm’ was heading her way
Raygun then said the anger and ‘vitriol’ directed towards herself, her husband and her family had been ‘pretty alarming’ as she slammed the wild conspiracy theories.
She also clarified how she secured her spot on the Olympic team as she poured cold water over the wild claims, insisting she hadn’t known any of the judges previously and earned her position.
Raygun went on to reveal she has sought out mental health support and completely took herself off social media in the wake of the online storm.
‘Fortunately, I got some mental health support pretty quickly and I also went off social media, I went off the internet,’ she candidly shared.
‘But it’s pretty up-and-down, but it’s also just hard to process it all, honestly. Like, it’s just still pretty hard to process.
‘It’s been a pretty wild ride I’m not going to lie, I definitely have had my ups and downs, my good and bad days.’
