Rachael Gunn aka Raygun has apologised to the breaking community.
She states that her “record speaks” to being the best B-girl in Australia.
The 2024 Olympian breakdancer sat down for her first interview since her controversial dance moves went viral, plastering her name and face around the globe.
While appearing on “The Project” on Wednesday evening, Raygun publicly apologised to the entire breakdancing community following criticism that she had damaged the dancing style.
“There’s been a portion of very angry and, you know, awful responses, not only attacking me but attacking my husband,” she said during the interview.
She added that the “very angry” and “awful responses” have also been aimed at her “crew”, as well as “attacking the breaking and street dance community in Australia, my family.”
“The energy and vitriol that people had was pretty alarming.”
In addition to the online backlash, Raygun also inspired a comedy bit on US comedian Jimmy Fallon‘s The Tonight Show, in which Rachel Dratch portrayed the Australian breakdancer.
“I don’t know whether to hug him or yell at him because – what a platform he ended up giving me, honestly,” Raygun said in response to the sketch.
“I haven’t actually seen the sketch because I don’t think I’m in a place yet to watch it, but I will watch it at some point,” she added.
The Olympian dancer went on to reveal that Richard Branson had gotten in touch with her following her performance going viral, telling her in a call that it was “plucky and courageous and fun.”
She added that he even asked her if she would perform on a cruise with Boy George.
Most importantly, Raygun touched on how her own breakdancing community disapproved of her performance at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“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,” she said.
When asked if she thinks she is the best female breakdancer in Australia, Raygun stated: “I think my record speaks to that”.
“There’s a number of white b-girls in Australia,” she added while touching on the irony that she herself has talked in the past about how the dance form originated from marginalised communities.
“I don’t know what it is about us white women and being attracted to breaking,” she added.
“I think even if it went to the second or third, that it still would have been a white b-girl representing.”
“That’s something that we’re always reflecting on – how can we get more people into breaking?”
Despite her performance being poorly received at the Olympics, Raygun says she qualified to compete by winning the Oceania qualifier, in which she didn’t know the judges beforehand.
“I was super nervous about it, to be honest, because even though I’d won all these competitions in Australia I was nervous about winning this one because it was all new judges.”
Although she is confident in her skills in Australia, she was aware she’d struggle against other countries’ dancers at the 2024 Games.
“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 went on to lose all three round-robin battles, with a viral Change.org petition being created accusing Raygun of having “manipulated” Olympic qualification processes.