When Australian breakdancer Rachael Gunn, better known as Raygun, left Paris after the 2024 Summer Olympics, she was overwhelmed with emotion as the internet roasted her viral performance.
“I was cringe, I brought shame and embarrassment on the country,” Raygun, 39, admitted in the Netflix documentary, Raygun: Breaking Badly. “That was rough.”
The film chronicles the lead-up to and fallout from Raygun’s viral showing at the 2024 Summer Olympics, when her unorthodox style led to her becoming a meme, ridiculed throughout social media to the point that she thought life as she knew it was over.
The day of her infamous performance, Raygun was shut out, 18-0, in all three of her battles. She defended her dancing after, telling reporters she was going for creativity.
“What I wanted to do was come out here and do something new and different and creative – that’s my strength, my creativity,” she said at the time. “I was never going to beat these girls on what they do best, the dynamic and the power moves, so I wanted to move differently, be artistic and creative because how many chances do you get [like] that in a lifetime to do that on an international stage.”
That creativity did not come across to her peers, including fellow breaker Flix, whose real name is Leah Clark.
“I have no personal problem with Rachael. She was someone who I considered a friend for 15 years,” Flix said in the documentary. “But I feel like I need to share with her Olympic performance that I was offended by it. I was embarrassed by it.”
But not everyone was as harsh. Sir Richard Branson made an appearance in the documentary, where he said he came away impressed with how Raygun responded to the fallout.
“The world needs to be made up of original thinkers,” he said. “In my opinion, she did something extraordinary — she stood out from the crowd.”
In the weeks after the Olympics, Raygun retreated from public view, staying in Europe with her husband and coach, Sammy Free. She periodically reached out to her fans through Instagram, thanking followers for their support and speaking out against the hate she’d received.
“I really appreciate the positivity and I’m glad I was able to bring some joy into your lives,” she said in one video. “That’s what I hoped. I didn’t realize that that would also open the door to so much hate, which has frankly been pretty devastating. While I went out there and I had fun, I did take it very seriously. I worked my butt off, preparing for the Olympics and I gave my all, truly.”
18 months later, Raygun danced again in front of people for the first time.
“Today my goal is just to dance in front of people and to show them what happened after Paris hasn’t defeated me,” she said. “I know for sure I’m never gonna stop dancing.”
Raygun: Breaking Badly is streaming now on Netflix.
