Suni Lee landed again.
The gymnast has silenced the critics who flocked to her after her historic Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show debut.
The six-time Olympic medalist, 22, took to TikTok over the weekend to hit back at trolls who mocked her height and questioned her casting in the lingerie giant’s rebooted runway show, posting a cheeky video of Grande’s bop being a “success” and captioning it: “Guys, can you please stop picking on me?”
In the video, Lee poses in front of a mirror, blow-drying her hair, expertly applying makeup, and lip-syncing the lyrics, “It feels so good to be so young/And it feels so good to enjoy this and be successful/Yeah/I’m so successful.”
The gymnast made history on Oct. 15 as one of the first professional athletes to walk the show’s iconic runway on the Brooklyn waterfront. She strutted around wearing a sporty pink ensemble with miniature angel wings sewn onto a pink zip-up hoodie.
However, her high-profile moment was quickly met with backlash from several keyboard warriors, who took aim at her five-foot height and questioned whether athletes should be on fashion runways alongside “real models.”
One fan clapped back to Lee’s defense, saying, “They’re crazy jealous because a 5-foot athlete had to be a VS model,” while another added, “Was there anyone on the runway who didn’t like it? I didn’t think so.”
Professional model Avary Hatzelman was particularly controversial in her viral TikTok rant, comparing the casting to “putting a model in the WNBA Championship” and slamming what she called “inclusivity bullshit.” But Lee’s supporters didn’t think so.
One commenter wrote, “Girl, I got your back. Why do people bully you because of your height 💔 Just like you can’t control that brother 😭🙏,” to which Lee responded, “Literally.”
Another fan was analytical about the show’s strategy, writing, “I’m tired of people saying, ‘Oh, we want real models, not athletes or influencers.'” “Look at how they modeled PINK. PINK is aimed at teens, so teens are into sports and look up to girls like Suni and Angel, and teens are on social media and love influencers like Quyen.”
Lee walked alongside fellow WNBA athlete Angel Reese and influencer Quenlyn Blackwell during the pink segment.
The Tokyo individual all-around gold medalist and recent team champion at the Paris Olympics told Marie Claire that her appearance on the VS runway is to show young girls that “you don’t have to fit into one box. You can pursue Olympic gold and still maintain your femininity.”
