'I Would Love to Leave a Legacy Like Beyonce'- Jordan Chiles Is Thinking Much Bigger Than Gymnastics
At 25 years old, Jordan Chiles has already done what most athletes spend an entire lifetime chasing. Olympic gold. NCAA championships. A New York Times bestseller. A mentorship program. A college degree on the way. And she is just getting started. Because for Jordan Chiles, gymnastics was never the destination. It was always just the beginning of something far larger and far more enduring than anything a scoreboard could ever measure.
- Krishna Sagar
- 4 min read
Jordan Chiles is not your typical 25 year old athlete.
A two-time Olympian, 2024 Paris Games gold medalist, four-time NCAA gymnastics champion, New York Times bestselling author, founder of a girls mentorship program, and former Time Woman of the Year, she is also finishing the final weeks of her senior year at UCLA, set to graduate with a degree in African American studies in June.
Named after Michael Jordan by parents who clearly had enormous expectations, Chiles took that namesake as a personal mandate that has shaped everything she has done since.
“When I was little, I never had imaginary friends. I always had imaginary dreams,” she told NBC News. “I am named after Michael Jordan. So I took his namesake very, very to heart and wanted to be like, if he’s Michael Jordan, why can’t I be Jordan Chiles?”
1. The Dreams She Carries
Jordan Chiles has always known exactly what she is building toward. While most professional athletes competing at the highest levels wait until retirement to think seriously about their next chapter, Chiles has been constructing hers in real time, alongside everything else, without slowing down for a single moment. She wants to act in television shows and blockbuster movies. She wants to own businesses that create genuine community impact. She wants to be known as a philanthropist who inspires the next generation of young women to believe that their ambitions have no ceiling. And above all of it sits a vision that she has articulated with complete clarity. “I would love to leave a legacy like Beyoncé or Whitney Houston. But I want to leave a legacy outside of my sport, " she said. It is a statement that tells you everything about how Jordan Chiles sees herself and what she is building. Not an athlete with a few business interests attached to her name. A cultural force, operating across multiple industries simultaneously, sustained by authenticity and an absolute refusal to be defined by any single thing she does. Beyoncé did not become Beyoncé by doing one thing well. She became Beyoncé by mastering music, performance, business, and cultural influence all at once, over decades, without ever compromising what made her singular. Jordan Chiles understands that model intimately. And at 25, she is already executing her own version of it.
2. The Athlete Who Never Stops
Jordan Chiles ended her collegiate gymnastics career the way she has lived every chapter of it. By winning. Her final NCAA competition produced a floor exercise title, the second of her college career, capping four years at UCLA that head coach Janelle McDonald described as one of the finest performances the program has ever seen. “She is an inspiring example of hard work and what it takes to show excellence in all you do,” said McDonald. “She uses her platform and our beautiful sport to show that when you have joy in what you do and are celebrated for being who you are, greatness is possible.” That joy is not incidental to what Chiles does. It is the engine behind all of it. Late last year, she and professional dance partner Ezra Sosa finished third in the Dancing with the Stars competition finale. Rather than treating it as a one-off television appearance, Chiles is now on tour with the show, bringing her performance instincts to a completely different stage and a brand new audience. “It’s pretty crazy that I’ve done so much in the time span of me only being 25 years old,” she said. “I’m very proud of myself, but I know I have a lot more to do.”
3. Building Something That Lasts
Away from the gym and the television stage, Jordan Chiles is building a brand with genuine intention behind every decision.
Her recent partnership with Pure Leaf around the brand’s new Mental Focus beverage is a telling example. Chiles did not attach her name to the product simply because the opportunity presented itself. She partnered with it because it genuinely fits her own demanding daily routine. The campaign also includes a collaboration with Brick, a digital wellness app that temporarily blocks phone applications to enable maximum focus, something Chiles says has become essential to managing her schedule.
Partnering with brands that make authentic sense in her actual life, she explained, is what builds real trust with the people who follow her.
That same authenticity runs through the Shero Athlete Collective, her mentorship program for young girls, and the book that landed her on the New York Times bestseller list. Every piece of what she is building connects back to the same core belief. That being fully, genuinely yourself is not a distraction from greatness. It is the very thing that makes greatness possible.
