McKayla Maroney Hopes Her Music Will Impress You

While McKayla Maroney’s Fierce Five teammates Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas are down in Rio repeating their gold medal greatness, Maroney is launching herself into a career of a different kind. The former gymnast says that she left gymnastics in the midst of an identity crisis but found a new passion: music. “I like to say my genre is vulnerable pop because it’s all melody and lyrically driven and heart driven,” she tells Us Weekly. Apparently her “favorite thing to sing about is love” and she counts Taylor Swift as a main inspiration. She says that she was aware of her desire to perform even while competing as a gymnast. “We weren’t allowed to have a boyfriend,” she tells Us Weekly. “You’re so dedicated and committed. I mean, I was in the gym for like eight hours a day and then outside of that I’d be doing school or writing songs in my free time, so there really wasn’t time for boys at all.” But that didn’t initially impress record executives, who thought of her as a gymnast and little else. So she’s releasing a single, “Ghost,” on September 8. In the meantime, she’s working in the studio and supporting her teammates on Twitter.