UPDATED 11/7, 2:10 p.m. ET: Raygun has confirmed that she's not retiring.
"It’s not me that’s retiring, guys. It’s Ray Hadley. He’s the Ray that’s retiring. It’s not me," she said on The Project of Hadley, who's a radio host in Australia.
She then clarified what she previously said on 2DayFM. "I’m still going to dance, I’m going to go to community jams, I’m still probably going to get down," she explained. "But in terms of those elite competitions and the Olympics, which, by the way, breaking is not even in the Olympics in the next one. So, it kind of turned into a really big thing today."
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Rachael "Raygun" Gunn will no longer breakdance.
The Australian dancer was mired in controversy after competing at this year's Paris Olympics and going viral for being awarded zero points when competing. She announced her retirement on Wednesday on 2DayFM’s The Jimmy and Nath Show, saying breakdancing is “really difficult” for her now.
"Dancing is so much fun, and it makes you feel good, and I don’t think people should feel crap about, you know, the way that they dance," she said on the Australian radio show.
"It was really upsetting, because I felt like I just didn’t have any control over how people saw me or who I was," she added, explaining that the internet’s negative perception of her led to her quitting.
"I think the level of scrutiny that’s going to be there and the people who will be filming it and it’ll go online, it’s just not going to mean the same thing,” she said. “It’s not going to be the same experience because of everything that’s at stake."
When asked if she would compete in the Olympics again, she said, “No.”
In September, the 37-year-old apologized to the breakdance community for her viral performance in Paris, saying she is, “very sorry for the backlash that the community has experienced.”
