Her appearance on NBC4 last week made fans wonder what the hell she did to her lips.
McKayla Maroney did some press during coverage of the Olympic trials last weekend, and viewers couldn’t help but notice that her lips had…let’s say “swelled” a bit.
Not so, Maroney told Seventeen Magazine.
“Your face changes, you get older, your face fills out, and you fall into liking makeup and different stuff like that,” she said.
“And for people saying that, for the most part — it would kind of hurt my feelings when you haven’t done anything. You just kind of have to keep being yourself and move forward with what you love.
“I just haven’t had anything to give to people, so they’re almost just picking at anything that they can to find something to talk about me for. It’s just one of those things right now and you just have to keep moving forward.”
Maroney posted an old photo of herself at the 2012 London Games next to a caption that read “Me thinking about how to get my face to look like i’ve never done anything to my face when i’ve never done anything to my face.”
Maroney admitted that social media hasn’t been easy, especially since transitioning from gymnast to a 24-year-old aspiring singer.
“It’s a very vulnerable position to be in,” Maroney said of being a gymnast in the age of Twitter.
“I was so young and I was not focused on what I looked like. I was focused on the gold medal.”
These days, the LA-based Maroney is making up for lost time.
“I think it freaks people out to see somebody change just a little bit. I don’t mean to freak anybody out. At the end of the day, I have changed. I can’t blame anybody for saying, ‘Oh, she changed!"”
Whatever the case, she’s moved on, everyone else should, too.
“It’s good to keep evolving and growing,” she said.
“I think most people should be accepting with stuff like that, but you know, you can’t force anybody into feeling a certain way.
“So for anybody who’s judging it and not liking it, that’s fine.”
