At the age of 3, Simone and her infant sister were placed in foster care when their biological mother, Sharon, was unable to take care of them due to her drug and alcohol addiction. Simone opened up about her upbringing and how the experience affected her and Adria in her Facebook Watch series, Simone vs. Herself.
“I don’t remember a lot about foster care, but I definitely knew that we had been taken from our biological mom and then you just think you’re going to go back to her,” she said in an episode titled “Who Am I?”
The two-time Olympian noted that she and Adria were “very fortunate” to not get split up while in foster care. They spent three years in the foster care system before their grandparents officially adopted them. Today, Simone refers to Ronald and Nellie as her parents.
Simone and Adria’s two other siblings, Tevin aand Ashley, were adopted by Ronald’s sister and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio.
