Rachael Gunn, aka Raygun, the Australian Olympic breaker who went viral after her unusual moves were widely mocked in the days after her performance at the Paris Games this summer, says the worldwide ridicule and attention prompted her to seek mental health support and to withdraw from all social media.
And she hasn’t even seen the Jimmy Fallon-Rachel Dratch parody. “I don’t think I’m in the place yet to watch it,” she says in a new interview with the Australian network television show The Project.
“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,” the 37-year-old breaker said. “The odds were against me, that’s for sure.”
“Fortunately I got some mental health support pretty quickly and I also went off social media,” she added.
Gunn’s breaking routine on August 9 in Paris quickly, if temporarily, became the focal point of the new Olympics competition category, drawing jokes and criticism for unusual moves like the “kangaroo hop,” which, in a tribute to Australia’s national mascot, involved bouncing from side to side with wrists bent.
That particular move, along with another now-signature dance in which she laid on her side and rotated in a circular motion that some likened to the old Three Stooges routine, was parodied by Fallon and guest Rachel Dratch on the August 12 episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
Asked by The Project host about her reaction to the Fallon sketch, Gunn said, “Mixed emotions. I don’t know whether to hug him or yell at him. What a platform he ended up giving me. I actually haven’t seen the sketch because I don’t think I’m in the place yet to watch it, but I will watch it at some point.”
She said friends have described the sketch to her.
Elsewhere during the The Project interview, Gunn apologized for the negative attention she’s brought to the new Olympic sport. “I am very sorry for the backlash that the community has experienced,” she said, “but I can’t control how people react.”
“I would much rather focus on the positives out of this, and the positive responses and the joy that I brought people,” she said. “It’s going out there and just having fun and going as hard as you can in the face of, you know, losing.”
Although she says she expected some negative responses, she was “really sad how much hate it did evoke.” The vitriol, she said, was “alarming.”
Asked whether she plans to continue with the sport, Gunn said probably not in the immediate future. “I don’t think I’ll be competing for a while,” she said, adding, “I’ll survive. I’m alright.”
Watch the interview below.
