Raygun has broken her silence on life after her viral Olympic debut, revealing she still battles in her living room but no longer competes.
The Australian breakdancer, whose real name is Rachael Gunn, 38, spoke ahead of Tuesday’s Netflix release of “Raygun: Breaking Badly,” the latest episode in the streaming giant’s sports scandal docuseries “Untold.” The documentary lands nearly two years after she became a global punchline for her performance at the 2024 Paris Olympics, where she lost all three first-round battles by a combined score of 54-0.
Gunn said that she has stepped back from competitive breaking entirely. “I was going to keep competing, for sure, but that seems really difficult for me to do now, to approach a battle,” she said on the Jimmy & Nath Show in November 2024. She continued: “I mean, I still dance and I still break but, that’s like in my living room with my partner.”
That partner is Samuel Free, her husband and coach since their 2018 marriage. Free had helped prepare Gunn for the Olympic stage, though neither anticipated the tsunami of online mockery that followed her kangaroo-hop-inspired routine and green-and-gold tracksuit. Hundreds of memes circulated within hours, and the athlete later admitted the response had been “pretty devastating” in the week after she competed.
Gunn, who until February 2026 worked as a lecturer at Sydney’s Macquarie University teaching media and creative industries, has since pivoted to public speaking. She has also returned to smaller venues, saying: “It’s been really nice to just go back in and support the scene and be part of the community,” referring to what she called “small local jams.”
The dancer’s Olympic strategy had hinged on differentiation rather than direct competition. She acknowledged she was “never going to beat these girls on what they do best, the dynamic and the power moves,” and instead intended to leave her mark on the competition in a “different way.” That approach backfired spectacularly in the scoring, though it succeeded in making her one of the most talked-about athletes of the entire Paris Games.
After viewing her own Netflix episode, Gunn offered a reflective assessment. “It reminded of how insane it was, how absurd it was,” she said. She added: “It was really cool to see me get through it at the end.”
The documentary’s timing coincides with a broader reckoning for competitive breaking. The sport will not appear at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, a decision unrelated to Gunn’s performance; host cities select their own optional sports, and LA organizers simply chose other events. Breaking’s absence was already confirmed by the time Paris began, meaning Gunn’s Olympic moment was simultaneously the sport’s debut and, for now, its farewell on that stage.
Gunn’s professional reinvention follows a familiar pattern for viral figures who outlast their initial notoriety. The Macquarie University position, which she held for years before the Olympics, ended in February 2026. Since then, she has pursued paid speaking engagements while maintaining ties to the breaking community through local events rather than the international circuit that once defined her ambitions.
The Netflix documentary represents her most prominent platform yet for controlling the narrative. Where social media users once dictated her story through memes and mockery, “Raygun: Breaking Badly” offers Gunn her own framing of an episode she now describes with a mixture of disbelief and pride.
Gunn is scheduled to continue her public speaking tour with appearances in Australian cities through late July.