Whatever Happened To Gymnast Laurie Hernandez?

If you're an avid Olympics watcher, you probably know Laurie Hernandez's name. The artistic gymnast burst onto the scene when she played a crucial role on the USA women's gymnastics team at the 2016 Rio Olympics — aka the "Final Five," as they were dubbed. Alongside other superstars Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas, Laurie Hernandez, Madison Kocian, and Aly Raisman, Hernandez captured hearts across America thanks to her charisma on the mat and her undeniable talent in twisting, tucking, split jumping, and more.

Although she competed in multiple gymnastics events at the 2016 Olympics, her speciality was the balance beam, for which she medaled at that year's Summer Games. And despite the fact that Hernandez clearly proved her talent on the world's biggest athletic stage, gymnastics fans didn't realize that this would be the last time they'd have the privilege of seeing Hernandez compete in her prime. Following the Rio Olympics, Hernandez mostly put gymnastics behind her.

From higher education to new athletic pursuits to a burgeoning career in the entertainment industry, Hernandez has been busy testing out new career paths and finding her footing outside of the gymnasium. Hernandez has ruled out a comeback, but she did return to gymnastics at the 2024 Paris Olympics — albeit in a much different way.

The year Laurie Hernandez made her debut at the Olympic Games was the same year that she entered senior level gymnastics. While most gymnasts spend years competing on the senior level, traveling to international competitions and racking up elite-level awards before making the U.S. gymnastics team, Hernandez made it pretty far on her first try. 

Hernandez began her gymnastics career in 2012 by training at the famous Karolyi Ranch, a since-defunct training center operated by Bela and Martha Karolyi, gold medal winning coaches who emigrated to America from Romania in 1981. In recent years, the couple have come under fire for their treatment of young gymnasts. However, it was the strict lessons at the Karolyi Ranch that resulted in Hernandez finishing second overall at the 2016 Olympic Trials. The only one to beat her? Simone Biles. 

From there, it was off to the races. Although she had just turned 16 at the time of competing, Hernandez helped Team USA clutch a gold medal in the team event and won an individual silver medal in the balance beam event. At the time, Hernandez told Olympics.com, "Beam routines are a minute and 30 seconds long, and that's a minute and 30 seconds that I really get to zone in on what I'm doing. It feels good." In 2020, ESPN looked back at the Final Five, dubbing them the "greatest team in U.S. history."

Gymnast Laurie Hernandez was at the peak of her popularity in summer 2016, as she was right off the heels of her big wins at the Rio Olympics. After settling back home in the States, the young Olympian made a wise choice in signing up for that year's season of "Dancing with the Stars," a show that millions of people tune in to see if people from all areas of fame — sports, hosting, music, and more — have what it takes to win the hotly sought-after Mirror Ball trophy. 

Considering she had been training as an artistic gymnast for over half her life, Hernandez had a bit of an upper hand. She was partnered with pro ballroom dancer Val Chmerkovskiy and quickly stole America's hearts all over again, wowing the audience with her sense of humor in the practice studio and her undeniable star power on the dance floor. 

Unsurprisingly, the season finale ended with Hernandez and Chmerkovskiy as the last couple standing. Photos from after the filming showed Hernandez stunning in a gold sequined ballroom dress, proudly holding the Mirror Ball trophy. Following her second big win of the year after the Summer Olympics, Hernandez told the press, as reported by Glamour, "I've always loved to dance and my passion was dancing as well as gymnastics, so winning the Mirrorball today was insane and amazing."

At just 5 years old, Laurie Hernandez began training with coach Maggie Haney. Their partnership seemed like a success story, with Haney leading Hernandez to an exceptional career in gymnastics and even a silver medal on the balance beam and a team gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics; however, news surfaced in 2020 that Haney had actually deployed abusive and toxic methods behind the scenes. As Hernandez told The New York Times, the coach screamed and body shamed her athletes, and was even accused of pulling the hair of one female pupil.

At only 19, Hernandez made the brave decision not only to speak out about the verbal abuse she had suffered but to testify against Haney during a disciplinary hearing. Speaking to The New York Times, Hernandez said, "I thought I deserved all of it. ...The toughest part about it was that there were no bruises or marks to show that it was real." She concluded, "It was all just so twisted that I thought it couldn't be real." Luckily, in response to such testimony, USA Gymnastics suspended Haney from coaching for eight years. 

After leaping onto the international spotlight at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, gymnast Laurie Hernandez was gearing up for a second Olympics when tragedy struck. She had taken a few years off to explore opportunities in the entertainment industry, but by June 2021, she had her head in the game and her eyes on the balance beam. It was while Hernandez was performing a double pike dismount off the beam that she was injured.

When she was attempting the landing, Hernandez accidentally hyper-extended her knee. That wasn't all though; after further inspection, it was confirmed that Hernandez had sustained a bruised bone, fluid in the bone, a cyst, and a torn meniscus. Having to face the music, Hernandez withdrew from the remainder of the US Championships and did not make it to the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Hernandez, for her part, rejects to think of this as a failed comeback. Reflecting on her journey, she told Olympics.com, "I had a good time coming back. I did so many skills that I would have never thought to have done before, I did new skills that have never been done before and things like that, so it definitely was a big success."

The end of Laurie Hernandez's Olympic career was when the fun really began. In 2021, despite the announcement that she would be retiring from competition gymnastics and that Rio 2016 had been her first and last Olympic Games, Hernandez delighted her fans by performing on the "Gold Over America Tour." 

Led by the GOAT herself, Simone Biles, the "Gold Over America Tour" (which can also be cheekily shortened to "GOAT") features the who's who of elite gymnastics performing under neon lights and smoke machines for a night of circus-like entertainment. Forget the sneering looks of judges and the sweating foreheads of coaches, this stage is all about celebrating the joy of gymnastics.

Tapped to be the master of ceremonies, Hernandez was front and center throughout the show. It's no surprise that Biles and her team chose this charismatic whizz kid — who was only 16 when she went to Rio 2016 — to introduce audiences to the world of "Gold Over America." When asked about her involvement, Hernandez told Olympics.com that she was inspired by the tour's focus on athletes' mental health. "We are talking about anxiety every single night. ... I think essentially we're all hoping that we can put a lot of words to what a lot of people in the crowd are feeling."

Following her success at the 2016 Rio Olympics, the silver medal champion burst onto our television screens. Rather than going straight from the airport to the training gym, Hernandez joined up with her agents and began to seek out opportunities in entertainment, specifically television hosting. She was hired to co-host Season 1 of "American Ninja Warrior Junior," a kids' version of the hit show where athletes and sportspeople from around the country try their best to defeat kooky obstacle courses. 

Speaking with People Magazine about her experience on the show, Hernandez said, "I think I was really drawn to the fact that kids were going out there and pursuing their dreams and that I could be a part of that." It's no surprise that the former Olympian took an interest in helping kids achieve their athletic goals, but what did come as a surprise was just how much of a natural Hernandez was at television hosting. She hadn't forgotten her athletic past though, as one episode featured Hernandez trying her hand at completing one of the show's famous obstacle courses. 

When asked about her future career goals in 2021, Laurie Hernandez answered that wished to pursue a career in acting and entertainment. It seemed that after having conquered Rio de Janeiro at the 2016 Olympics, this former athlete had her sights set on Hollywood. She wouldn't be the only athlete who parlayed an Olympic medal into an entertainment career, as some Olympic athletes live lavish lives thanks to their paychecks from film and television endeavors. 

Hernandez clearly had her sights set on a similar career path, telling Olympics.com, "I feel like that was pretty expected of me. I loved performing since I was a kid, so whether that be a theatre or on screen acting ... I have a really big passion for voice acting just because I think it's kind of fun, hilarious." 

The former Olympian made good on her goals, eventually starring as Valerie in the animated miniseries "Middle School Moguls" from Nickelodeon. She also had a second voice acting stint in "The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder," where Hernandez guest starred as a fictionalized version of herself alongside other star gymnasts Dominique Dawes and Gabby Douglas. In the adorable episode, Hernandez is back on the balance beam in animated form, drawing on her original craft to help launch her new acting career.

If you had to guess which college class Olympic gymnast Laurie Hernandez struggled with the most, would you say mathematics? English literature? Philosophy 101? If you said any of those you would be sorely mistaken, as Hernandez shared with Olympics.com following her freshman year at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, the only class she didn't totally ace was, ironically, a movement class.

Strangely enough, the former balance beam champion revealed that she has no idea how she could go from having total control over her body at the Rio 2016 Olympics to misstepping in a course all about moving your body. "We get little report cards, and I was like, 'No way.' But yeah, anyways, it averaged out to straight As and I'm really happy about that because I've been homeschooled my whole life," Hernandez said.

It turns out that after bowing out gracefully from a second Olympics bid, Hernandez chose to cultivate a different skillset by studying drama in the Big Apple. It's all a part of her passion for theatrics and performing. Hernandez went on to admit that she wasn't sure if she could create a career outside of the gym. "There was a little part of me that was like, 'Okay, I'm really good at gymnastics. Can I be good at anything else?'" she said. "And so far, so good," the retired gymnast went on, "Acting and just the world of entertainment is definitely on the horizon for me."

If you tuned in to the 2016 Summer Olympics, you might have noticed Laurie Hernandez create a viral moment in real time. Cameras caught Hernandez giving herself a quiet pep talk, whispering "I got this" to herself. It was that moment that inspired the title of her first book, "I Got This: To Gold and Beyond," published in 2017. The book details Hernandez's experience being a member of the gold medal-winning Final Five.

Another moment Hernandez gave readers special insight into was when the spunky athlete decided to wink at the judges just before her floor routine. In the book, Hernandez writes, "The amazing thing about the Olympics is that you feel so many different emotions in the span of a few days, and they are all intense. So it was nice to have at least one totally playful moment. For me that moment happened during my floor routine in the team finals, just before we won. I spontaneously winked at one of the judges and everyone there, and at home, seemed to love that" (via NBC Sports).

The message behind "I Got This" — to trust yourself and have fun even in high pressure situations — was so popular that it was later adapted into a children's book, again written by Hernandez and titled "She's Got This." Colorfully illustrated by Nina Mata, the book encourages young girls to achieve their dreams. 

Both Laurie Hernandez and Charlotte Drury were on the U.S. National Gymnastics team, albeit at different times. Hernandez competed in artistic gymnastics at Rio Summer Games in 2016 and Drury competed in trampoline and tumbling at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. It seemed that their relationship bloomed in December 2020, with the duo celebrating their one-year anniversary in December 2021 by going public on social media. 

Hernandez posted a snap to her Instagram page that showed her grinning from ear to ear, while Drury gave her a kiss on the cheek. Hernandez gave fans an update on the love story, posting another picture in July 2024 to celebrate Drury's birthday. She captioned the post, "Happy birthday baby!! thank you for all the big belly laughs. can't wait to play video games later with u." Drury was quick to comment back, jokingly writing under her girlfriend's post, "I love you so much!!!! (We can take turns playing Spider-Man later)." It seems that having retired from gymnastics allowed the champion more time to embark on a romantic relationship.

From flipping high on the balance beam to dancing the cha cha on "Dancing with the Stars" to taking on multiple voice acting gigs, Laurie Hernandez has already had a more varied career than most. And although she wasn't slipping back in to a leotard during the 2024 Paris Olympics, she was slipping into something arguably more comfortable — a set of headphones. 

Having been invited by NBC's Peacock Network to work as a commentator during the women's gymnastics events, Hernandez bulked out another branch of her career in entertainment. Not only did the former Team USA champion nail the technical aspects of commenting on women's gymnastics, but she also managed to entice newbies to the sport who were enthralled by Hernandez's natural charm. 

Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Hernandez revealed that her charm also comes with a media strategy. "I want it to feel like we're all sitting on the couch together," she said. "We are just talking gymnastics, we're talking joy, we're talking hardships." She went on to say, "I know for a fact that everyone out on the competition floor is human. They have all had their own hardships," and with this Hernandez touched on exactly what her superpower was a commentator — niche, inside knowledge. Her sideline commentary started going viral during the Games, and Hernandez isn't mad about it. "I just feel really grateful that people have found it exciting and relatable," she told the publication.