Raygun has revealed that she knew immediately after her disastrous performance at the Olympics that her life would change forever.
The 37-year-old breakdancer became an overnight sensation for her comedy routine at the 2024 Paris Olympics, which became the most talked-about moment of the event.
The Australian hopped like a kangaroo and slid across the floor during her bizarre performance, and faced an onslaught of online mockery, with the likes of Adele and Jimmy Fallon adding to the viral moment.
The internet sensation has kept a relatively low profile since her performance last month, but has now given the world’s first television interview about 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 she was in for a turbulent time after receiving a worrying message from an Australian Olympic Committee official after her routine.
“As soon as I finished, you know, my rounds, my AOC press liaison was like, ‘Oh, there’s a little bit of a storm brewing on social media. You might want to stop using it,'” she said.
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“I thought, ‘Okay.’ I didn’t understand the magnitude of the situation. I saw some comments and I thought, ‘No, no.’ And a kind of uneasy feeling started to emerge.
“I thought: ‘My God! What happened?'”
Raygun admitted that he hasn’t rewatched his performance, while addressing the “harsh” backlash.
“I haven’t watched it again, no. It’s not unusual for me though. I’m not very good at rewatching my battles,” she shared.
“It’s still going to take some time. I think I’ve seen little bits and pieces, but yeah, I’ll see it one day.”
Amid claims that she might bag a number of television offers, Raygun said she does not wish to remain in the limelight and plans to take a step back from the competition.
“I don’t think I’ll be competing for a while. I don’t really want to be the center of attention, breaking, competing. But… You know, it’s been nice,” she shared.
She also believes that most of the negative reaction is due to a lack of understanding of breakdancing by the general public.
“However, a lot of the responses are also simply due to people not being very familiar with breaking and the diversity of approaches to it,” he continued.
‘It was so fantastic that the next day the president of the jury, MG, came out and explained that in the breaking community what I did was actually not very shocking.
“You know, it’s just a different approach to breaking. You have athletic style breakers and you also have more artistic style breakers and all of them are very valid.”
Raygun later said the anger and “vitriol” directed towards herself, her husband and her family had been “quite alarming” as she slammed the wild conspiracy theories.
She also clarified how she got her spot on the Olympic team while pouring cold water on the wild claims, insisting she did not know any of the judges before and earned her spot.
Raygun went on to reveal that she sought mental health support and completely stepped away from social media in the wake of the online storm.
“Luckily, I received mental health support fairly quickly and also got off social media and the internet,” she candidly shared.
“But it’s pretty irregular, but it’s also hard to process it all, honestly. It’s pretty hard to process.”
“It’s been a pretty wild ride, I’m not going to lie, I’ve definitely had my ups and downs, my good days and my bad days.”
