Raygun interview: Rachael Gunn breaks silence after Paris Olympics breakdancing controversy

Aussie breakdancer Rachael ‘Raygun’ Gunn has broken her silence, revealing she sought mental health support and banned herself from social media in the weeks following her controversial Olympics performance.

And in an astonishing twist, she has revealed she knew she was going to get beaten in Paris.

“It’s been a pretty wild ride, I’m not going to lie,” she said in an interview on The Project.

“I definitely have my ups and downs, my good and bad days, but it has been, honestly, so amazing to see the positive response to my performance.

“I never thought that I would be able to connect with so many people in such a positive way. So, that has been just so amazing.

“But, yeah, it definitely has been tough at times.

“Fortunately, I got some mental health support pretty quickly and I also went off social media, I went off the internet.”

She said she was in a “state of panic” after journalists started chasing her down the street.

“I was quite nervous being out in public ‘cause I just didn’t know what was safe, if anyone was going to recognise me, if, you know, how they were going to respond to seeing me.”

She admitted she hadn’t watched her Olympic performance back but that was “not unusual” and she didn’t normally watch her performances afterwards.

She said the amount of hate that her performance evoked was “really sad”.

“There’s been a portion of very angry and, you know, awful responses, not only attacking me but attacking my husband, attacking my crew, attacking the breaking and street dance community in Australia, my family,” she said.

“The energy and vitriol that people had was pretty alarming.”

The Project host Waleed Aly said things got “pretty wild” in the aftermath of the performance.

“The conspiracy theories were just awful,” she said.

“That was upsetting because it wasn’t just people that didn’t understand breaking and were just angry about my performance, it was people that are now attacking our reputation and our integrity. And none of them were grounded in any kind of facts.”

Raygun defended her selection for the Olympics, saying she won the Oceanic qualifier.

“It was as simple as that,” she said.

Remarkably, she revealed that she knew she would get beaten at the Olympics because of her style.

“I knew my chances were slim. As soon as I qualified, I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh, what have I done?!’ Because I knew that I was going to get beaten and I knew that people were not going to understand my style and what I was going to do,” she said.

“It is really sad to hear those criticisms. And I am very sorry for the backlash that the community has experienced, but I can’t control how people react.”

Raygun was widely panned for her cringeworthy performance which divided Australians over whether she was being an Aussie larrikin taking the piss or if she genuinely believed her outlandish moves would appeal to the judges.

They did not, and she failed to score any points.

Asked by Aly whether Gunn “genuinely” thought she was the best female break dancer in Australia, she defended her position on the Australian Olympic team.

“I think my record speaks to that,” Gunn said.

“I was the top-ranked Australian b-girl in 2020, 2022 and 2023. I have been invited to represent at many world championships, Paris, Korea. You know? So, the record is there. But anything can happen in a battle.”

Raygun said the upside was hearing from random people that she never thought she would hear from, such as billionaire Richard Branson, who told her he would love to have her on one of his cruises.

She said she was planning on taking a break from competing for a while and would focus on the positives.

“I’ll survive. I’m alright. The positives are just amazing. I would much rather focus on the positives out of this and the positive responses and the joy that I’ve brought people. It’s going out there and just having fun and going as hard as you can in the face of losing!”

Gunn’s Paris debut broke the internet.

Singing megastar Adele stopped her performance in Germany to say the Australian was her “favourite thing” about the Olympics.

“I can’t work out if it was a joke, but either way, it has made me very, very happy, and me and my friends have been sh*tting ourselves laughing for nearly 24 hours,” Adele said.

And one of the biggest talk shows in the US — The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon — did a skit mocking the performance which featured the almost comical moves of the snake, kangaroo and sprinkler.

The criticism reached a fever pitch when a Change.org petition to “Hold Raygun Racheal Gunn & Anna Meares accountable for unethical conduct Olympic selection” secured more than 45,000 signatures.

The petition was taken down after Change.org decided it violated community guidelines.

Chef de Mission Meares said last month Gunn should be applauded for her courage, rather than pilloried.

“What has occurred on social media with trolls and keyboard warriors, and taking those comments and giving them air time, has been really disappointing,” she said.

“Raygun is an absolutely loved member of this Olympic team. She has represented the Olympic team, the Olympic spirit, with great enthusiasm.”

“She is the best breakdancer female that we have for Australia.”

The prime minister also backed Raygun as controversy swirled in the days after her performance.

“Good on her and a big shout-out to her. That is in the Australian tradition of people having a go. She’s had a go representing our country and that’s a good thing,” Anthony Albanese said.

“The Olympics is about people participating in sport. That’s a good thing and Raygun had a crack.

“Whether (athletes have) won gold medals or just done their best, that is all we ask for. It’s the participating that is really important.”

Breakdancing had already been cut from the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles with Raygun’s performance cited by critics as why it should have never been included in the first place. The sport could return for the Brisbane Games in 2032.

There were some winners from the Raygun debacle with a US clothing business called Raygun clothing profiting from the huge internet interest in the Olympian.

And Raygun herself has made the most of her new found fame by making an appearance at the Logies and signing with a top talent agency.

“Please feel free to pull out one of my signature moves in celebration,” she said in a video message to the Logies nominees.

The Nightly columnist Mitchell Johnson wrote that the furore over Raygun had helped another athlete, hockey player Tom Craig, with the spotlight on him after he was arrested trying to buy cocaine in Paris shifting to the Australian breakdancer.