On Sunday, Al Trautwig mentioned Ron and Nellie Biles as being gymnast Simone Biles' grandparents rather than as her parents.
In response to his comment, a woman, Emily Mingus, tweeted at Trautwig saying, "Hey @AlTrautwig stop calling her PARENTS her grandfather and his wife. A. Nelly is more important than 'his wife' B. THEY ARE HER PARENTS."
Ron and Nellie Biles adopted Simone and her little sister Adria in 2001. The girls' biological mother, Ron Biles' daughter, struggled with drugs and alcohol, and the sisters had been in foster care for some time before the adoption was secured.
However, Trautwig retweeted Mingus' tweet, while standing wrong and strong, saying, "They may be mom and dad but they are NOT her parents," reports USA Today.
He then deleted the post, but of course it was too late, since viewers had already taken a screenshot of it. Following his inappropriate comment, the hashtag #FireTrautwig began trending on Twitter.
According to USA Today, Trautwig later emailed NBC Sports, saying, "I regret that I wasn’t more clear in my wording on the air. I compounded the error on Twitter, which I quickly corrected. To set the record straight, Ron and Nellie are Simone’s parents."
Many people attacked Trautwig in reaction to his tweet, and NBC responded in a statement, "We became aware of the situation last night and addressed it with Al quickly."
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Veronica Graves is a digital-news associate at The Root. Follow her on Twitter.