Superstar US gymnast Simone Biles and tele-health provider Cerebral have ended an endorsement partnership, the company announced on Tuesday, bringing to a close a deal in which the 25-year-old Olympic champion used her own mental health experience to promote the controversial mental health startup.
Biles became Cerebral’s “chief impact officer” three months after her dramatic withdrawal from individual competition at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 saying she was “not in the right head space” to compete.
The athlete, who won four gold medals and a bronze at her first Olympic in 2016, was then approached by Celebral in a tie-up with Biles’s own mental health advocacy platform. The terms of the deal were never disclosed.
The split between Biles and Celebral comes seven months after the company received a subpoena from federal investigators over its prescribing practices of controlled substances, including the amphetamine Adderall and other stimulants used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD.
Cerebral’s nurse practitioners have said they felt pressured by the company to prescribe stimulants after a 30-minute evaluation. The major pharmacy chains CVS and Walmart later announced they would no longer fill the company’s prescriptions for controlled prescription drugs.
The company fired its founder and chief executive, Kyle Robertson, in a dispute with Cerebral’s board. A leaked memo said Robertson’s focus on growing Celebral’s prescribing business had “created the market perception of Cerebral as a ‘pill mill’”.
Cerebral has said it has not been accused of breaking laws and is cooperating with investigators.
In her ads, Biles said that she had not known how to tackle anxiety until she found Cerebral. “Cerebral is a customized solution for your mental health needs,” she said. “You can get help for anxiety, depression, ADHD, insomnia and more.”
The split between Biles and Cerebral echoes reputational difficulties celebrity endorsers face promoting companies that then run into problems. In recent weeks, those have included the quarterback Tom Brady and supermodel Gisele Bündchen with the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, and Kim Kardashian’s association with Balenciaga, a fashion brand recently accused of promoting child abuse through a criticized ad campaign.
