Raygun didn’t know whether to ‘hug or yell at’ Jimmy Fallon in wake of viral Paris Olympics performance
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Rachael 'Raygun' Gunn has apologised to the breaking community while claiming her “record speaks” to being Australia’s best B-girl, in her first sit-down interview since her controversial appearance at the Paris Olympics made global headlines.
The Australian breakdancer was at the centre of an international wave of controversy after she was knocked out of the round-robin stage of the event for her performance routine that included hopping like a kangaroo and flailing on the floor.
In the interview, which aired on Wednesday night [in Australia], Gunn apologised to the breakdancing community after the criticism she had damaged the art form’s reputation.
“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 told .
“The energy and vitriol that people had was pretty alarming.”
Gunn also inspired a sketch on US comedian Jimmy Fallon’s , something she described as evoking “mixed emotions”. She added she was not “in a place yet to watch it”.
“I don’t know whether to hug him or yell at him because — what a platform he ended up giving me, honestly,” she told host Waleed Aly about Fallon.
“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.”
The 36-year-old also revealed Richard Branson had called her in the wake of the performance to tell her he thought it was “plucky and courageous and fun” — asking her if she would perform on a cruise with musician Boy George.
Gunn also addressed the disapproval from within the breaking community, with some claiming she had set back the progression of the sport.
When asked if she thought she was the best female breaker in the country, Gunn responded: “I think my record speaks to that.”
Asked by Aly if there was irony in the fact Gunn has written about how breakdancing came from marginalised communities, yet a white person was sent to the Olympics, Gunn said: “There’s a number of white B-girls in Australia”.
Gunn said she qualified for the Olympics by winning the Oceania qualifier, where she didn’t know the judges.
“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,” she said.
She said she knew when she qualified she would struggle against the other countries.
“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.”
Gunn lost all three of her round-robin battles by a combined score of 54-0, prompting a hostile response to her performance.
More than 40,000 people signed an anonymous Change.org petition claiming Gunn had “manipulated” Olympic qualification processes.
The AOC clarified in a statement the qualifying event in Sydney in October 2023 was conducted by the sport’s international governing body World DanceSport Federation, as approved by the International Olympic Committee.
Gunn was “legitimately nominated” by DanceSport Australia to the committee after winning the qualifying event and had no responsibility for any funding decisions in the sport, the AOC said.