Raygun breaks her silence on the brutal aftermath of her Olympic humiliation: Break-dancer reveals the toll of becoming a global meme

Two years after becoming one of the most recognisable — and ridiculed — athletes on the planet, Raygun is finally ready to take back control of her story.

Rachael Gunn became a global sensation almost overnight after her now-infamous six-minute breaking performance at the Paris Olympics in 2024.

But behind the viral memes, kangaroo poses and relentless online mockery was an academic who, by her own admission, struggled to even leave the house.

The 38-year-old was transformed from a relative unknown into an international punchline after her three Olympic battles went viral.

She and her husband Samuel Free were subsequently targeted by conspiracy theories and accusations that they had somehow cheated their way into the Games — claims that were particularly damaging given Free was also her coach.

Now, two years on, the Sydney-born athlete is preparing to confront the chaos head-on in a new Netflix documentary, Untold Raygun: Breaking Badly.

Unlike when the streaming giant first approached her at the height of the scandal, she now finally feels ready to tell her side of the story. 

'I wouldn't have been in a space to be able to talk about it, let alone laugh about it as much,' Gunn tells Stellar of the aftermath of Paris.

She says the documentary 'kind of feels like closure. So much of what happened was everyone else's voices. I couldn't cut through. People weren't ready to listen. I had no control over the narrative.

'Everyone thought they knew who I was, knew my motivations, knew my background – everything. This finally feels like I can move on with my life.'

It is a remarkable shift for the woman who once found herself at the centre of one of the biggest internet pile-ons in recent memory.

Gunn credits working with a psychologist and taking medication for helping her finally accept what happened in Paris and rebuild. 

'I feel like finally, I can just be unapologetically me. It's really empowering, freeing,' she said.

She is still seeing the same therapist, to whom she confided, before leaving for Paris, that her greatest fear was having her Olympic performance mocked.

Her therapist's response?

'"Do you think that's reasonable?" She did say after it all happened that things I was saying made sense in a different way,' Gunn said. 'She's still been very helpful.'

The documentary also delves into Gunn's relationship with Free, whom she met while working at a call centre in 2008 and who would eventually become her husband, coach and one of the people standing beside her as the internet turned against them.

Gunn's fellow B-girls also address the cheating allegations in the documentary, rejecting the claims that the couple somehow manipulated their way into the Olympic competition.

'We face everything together... he just keeps encouraging and supporting me,' Gunn says of Free.

'We've been together for a long time. It did bring us closer together because it was both of us being attacked. His ethics were being attacked. He's a disability support worker; a caring, ethical person. He always tries to do the right thing.

'It was hard on both of us to see our names dragged through the mud, and people saying things that were completely false like it was the truth.'

The couple also reveal that, soon after qualifying for the Games, they both realised Gunn's creative and quirky style of breaking was unlikely to compete with the power moves of her rivals in Paris.

The pressure became so intense that Gunn suffered a panic attack in the Olympic Village.

'In the lead-up [to the Games], I wasn't able to enjoy dancing,' she added.

'My parents described it as a hobby, an amazing space where I was exploring myself. And then suddenly it was like an elite sport, and I was getting drug tested at 6am. I started going to the gym. It just became a huge source of stress.'

Yet despite everything that happened, Gunn refused to let the experience take breaking away from her.

'I'm not gonna let anything stop me from doing something I love,' she insisted.

'The breaking community has been amazing. Every event I went to, people welcomed me back. I love this scene!'

'It's such a diverse group of people – different jobs, backgrounds, languages, religions. We all come together. That's what hip-hop is about: peace, unity, love, and having fun.'