Although you’ll never see Simone Bilesnervous during a gymnastics competition, she was freaking out before meeting her celebrity crush Zac Efron during the 2016 Rio Olympics after winning five medals.
“If you bring him out, I think I’m gonna pass out!” the Olympic gymnast, 19, told theToday show’s Hoda Kotb, who set up the meeting, on Tuesday, August 16.
The Neighbors actor, 28, surprised Biles and her Final Five teammates Aly Raisman,Gabby Douglas, Laurie Hernandez andMadison Kocian, and even gave Biles a huge hug and kiss on the cheek. “Ahh, oh my God! Stop, is this real life? Oh my God. Stop,” Biles said.
Kotb recalled that Biles was worried that she smelled bad because she was sweating so much after hearing that her favorite celebrity flew in to see her.
However, Biles wasn’t the only one with jitters. “I totally have butterflies right now,” Efron said while watching her compete in the floor exercise final. “I’m getting kind of emotional."
Efron appeared on the Today show on Wednesday and chatted about how excited he was to meet the girls. “They won gold medals, they were crushing it the entire Olympics, and I was like hiding in a closet waiting to come in, so I didn’t know what to think,” Efron said. “I kind of was getting nervous myself, but it ended up being so sweet.”
“Their story just blew my mind,” theBaywatch actor continued. “When I found out Simone and this team were fans, I was like, ‘What kind of guy am I if I don’t show up?’”
Efron said that although he doesn’t usually watch much gymnastics, he tuned in to watch the ladies compete. “They have such heart and there was clearly something special,” he said of the gymnasts. “I was really excited.”
The former Disney star tweeted a pic with the Olympians on Tuesday, captioning it, “My Olympic dream came true.”
The two struck up a friendship on Twitter earlier this summer after Biles revealed that she’s a huge fan of the High School Musicalstar during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and in her Us Weekly 25 Things You Don’t Know About Me. She also took NBC on a tour of her childhood bedroom, which had a life-size cutout of Efron that she liked to kiss on the cheek.
