The star gymnast talks to PEOPLE about graduating from UCLA and being nominated for her first BET Award
Jordan Chiles is figuring out her next move, on and off the mat.
The Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast, 25, is fresh off her graduation from UCLA and is now deciding what the future holds for her. “I don't know what 25-year-old Jordan is going to be doing,” she tells PEOPLE exclusively of a potential 2028 Olympics bid. “I do have a few vacations planned — and I haven't gone on vacation literally since I started my sport — so finally having relaxation is definitely something I'm very, very happy about.”
“I think the biggest thing that I've been doing recently is just taking it day-by-day, month-by-month, see how everything turns out and just go from there,” Chiles says. “LA28 is always in my mind, I can say that. If I do this Olympic Games, I want to do it my way, I want to understand my why. It's not a no, it's not a yes, I'm still fifty-fifty.”
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Chiles, who in January was granted an appeal on the ruling that stripped her of her Olympic individual bronze medal in 2024, is still weighing all her options, and planning for every possibility.
“I gave myself a deadline. If I do it, to get the right amount of practice, everything that I need to do to keep myself in good shape for the Olympics,” she says. “But I think right now, since I just came off of a season, I've just been trying to figure out how to relax in my inner peace and my happiness.”
Chiles capped off her senior year by winning the 2026 NCAA floor exercise individual national title, marking her fourth career NCAA title overall. Another year of achievements led to a BET Awards nomination for Sportswoman of the Year, recognition that she calls “a dream come true.”
“I always told myself watching the BET Awards, any award show, I'm going to win one of those awards one day,” she explains. “This is something that I feel is a little bigger because there's more people who are involved, especially in entertainment, whether you're an artist, whether you're a producer, a director, whoever you may be. So it's just crazy that I'm in this category now and I get to really enjoy it.”
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Being recognized in the company of other greats has also humbled the athlete. “To know that I'm nominated with remarkable women such as A'ja Wilson, Sha'Carri Richardson, Naomi Osaka and all of them, I'm just like, ‘This is crazy.’ They've done so much within their careers and make the younger generation understand that anything is possible.”
“Whatever happens, I'm just happy that I got nominated,” she adds about the honor, which will be handed out at the 2026 BET Awards on June 28.
Beyond her multiple Olympic medals and World Championships, Chiles is also a New York Times best-selling author and a third-place finisher on Dancing with the Stars. The multi-hyphenate's extensive bucket list now includes dreams of tackling Hollywood.
Credit: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic
“I do want to act, I want to go into the acting world,” she reveals. “As a stunt double, as a voice actor, or just a character that I get to be a part of and create.” Chiles’ creative aspirations include eventually being her own Marvel character: “I know that's crazy to say, but I love Marvel and just superheroes themselves. I still think I'm a superhero because the things that we do in gymnastics don't make sense, but hey, it's what we do.”
Chiles' ambition doesn't stop there: “There's a lot of things that I wish, to open restaurants and different businesses… I feel like there's different pieces of me that people have not truly seen quite yet.”
With an African American Studies degree now under her belt, Chiles is proud of herself for accomplishing her lifelong goal of graduating from college and never giving up on her dreams.
“I was that little kid who always had a bad day and told my mom that I wanted to quit, but she was always that parent that was like, ‘Try quitting on a good day’,” she reflects. “I wanted to be able to look at my accomplishments as like, ‘Wow, you wanted to quit, but look at you now. You've been on magazine covers, you are now nominated for a BET Award, you've been on Dancing with the Stars. You're doing all these things and you should be very proud of yourself’.”
“It took me a while to accept, even just to say, 'I'm proud of myself',” she continues. “That was something that I just didn't think I should say, but knowing that I've done so much and people call me their hero, it just means everything. Now I can look at myself and be like, ‘You know what? You've created your why now and now you're just perfecting it.’ I'm just proud that I never quit and that I listened to my six-year-old self.”
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