Suni Lee Was Stalked by Several Men Before Paris Olympics: Report

Gymnast Suni Lee has dealt with several stalkers on the road to the Paris Olympics, according to The New York Times.

The Times detailed the stalking accusations in a lengthy July 29 profile of Lee as she competes in Paris. Lee already won a gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics; she is competing against Simone Biles in a quest for all-around gold in Paris, according to USA Gymnastics.

According to The Times, in one of the stalking incidents, “a Hmong man in his 40s or 50s had followed her from Minnesota,” and he was accused of showing up at her coach’s gym in Minnesota too, looking for Lee.

“She has had stalkers,” and one tried to “track her down in at least three states,” The Times reported.

Sports Illustrated also reported that the “attention escalated to stalking,” when Lee was a college student at Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama, but added that she did not want to share details, referring to the situation as “scary.”

“I don’t know if I can talk about it,” she told SI.

Auburn University Hired a Security Guard to Escort Suni Lee, the Report Says

GettySuni Lee in Paris.

The situation became so serious that Auburn University, which Lee was attending at the time, hired a security guard to escort her, The Times reported.

“That man was causing real problems,” her coach Jess Graba said to the Times, which reported that her college, Auburn University, “soon hired a security guard to escort Lee in public.”

According to Jeff Graba, Jess’s twin brother, Lee’s “last meet was in Georgia, where security had to sweep the hotel, looking for two men who were stalking her,” The Times reported.

Sports Illustrated reported that, while she was attending Auburn University, Lee learned she might need “to hire security to attend classes in person,” so she went to classes virtually instead.

“Online school was really boring,” she told Sports Illustrated. SI reported that other students took videos of Lee eating when she tried to go to the cafeteria, quoting her as saying, “It’s so weird.”

The Auburn athletic department told SI that it was “unaware of any private security advice” given to Lee, but Auburn “take[s] our obligation to campus safety seriously for all Auburn students.”

The accused stalkers weren’t the only challenge for Lee at Auburn, SI reported.

“A lot of the girls weren’t the nicest to me,” Lee added to SI. “I just really felt like an outcast, almost. They didn’t treat me that well. I just knew that I couldn’t trust them.” The Times reported that “admirers” put notes under Lee’s door.

In Another Incident, Suni Lee Says She Was Called Racial Slurs & Pepper Sprayed, Reports Say

GettySunisa Lee of Team United States practices on the balance beam during a Gymnastics training session in the Bercy Arena ahead of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on July 25, 2024.

The stalking incidents aren’t the only frightening situation that Lee has faced since she won gold in the Tokyo Olympics.

According to a profile story on her by Pop Sugar in 2021, Lee, who is of Hmong descent, has also faced anti-Asian racism.

She and friends were waiting for an Uber when people in a car began yelling “racist slurs” and telling the group to “go back to where they came from,” Pop Sugar reported, adding that a passenger in the vehicle sprayed Lee’s “arm with pepper spray as the car sped off.”

“I was so mad, but there was nothing I could do or control because they skirted off,” she told Pop Sugar of the incident. “I didn’t do anything to them, and having the reputation, it’s so hard because I didn’t want to do anything that could get me into trouble. I just let it happen.”

In addition, Lee has faced difficulties surrounding her health; she announced on X that she was withdrawing from Auburn in 2023 after being diagnosed with kidney issues.