Suni Lee Reveals She Doesn’t Know Who Her Biological Dad Is After Being Raised By Mom’s Longtime Partner

Suni Lee shared insight into her family dynamic in a recent TikTok video, revealing that she never knew the identity of her biological dad .

“I have five siblings, and they’re three brothers and two sisters,” the Olympic gold medalist, 21, told her followers in a “Get Ready With Me” video on Tuesday, September 24.

“All my siblings are either my half or my step because I don’t know who my biological dad is,” Suni added with a laugh.

The Team USA gymnast was born as Sunisa Phabsomphou in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to mother Yeev Thoj . When Suni was 2 years old, her mom began dating a man named John Lee , and he helped raise the Olympic champion. Though John and Yeev never got married, Suni began using his last name when she was a teenager.

Suni’s parents always supported her interest in gymnastics, with John even building the rising star a balance beam in their backyard.

"She goes to the gym and she practices, but we don't have a beam here. So I couldn't afford a real beam, so I built her one,” John told Today in July 2021 as Suni competed in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. “I am proud. The family’s proud. The community is very proud of her.”

Before competing in Tokyo, Suni turned to her father for advice and motivation, John gushed to ESPN .

“You’re not doing this for nobody else anymore,” he told his daughter. “Not for your friends, not for the Hmong community. You are doing this for yourself now. OK? Enjoy. That’s your only goal. You got this.”

John told ESPN that he “tries to be confident for her.” He admitted that he was once “hard on her and she’d get mad," but he shifted his perspective when her career took off and the pressure became intense.

“Now she’s used to me telling her to go out there and have fun,” he added.

Just as John has been by Suni’s side for her gymnastics career, Suni supported her father during his health struggles. In 2019, John fell from a ladder while helping a friend cut down a tree branch and was paralyzed from the waist down.

“I thought he was going to pass away when he was in the hospital, so I didn’t want to go to nationals and compete. But he told me to go, that he really wanted me to go. So, I did,” she told The New York Times . “Now I realize that if he didn’t push me like that, I wouldn’t be in the spot I am right now with the Olympics so close. I knew he was watching me, so I did great for him.”

The gymnast went on to win gold, silver and bronze at the 2019 championship in Stuttgart, Germany. At the Tokyo Games, she took home one gold, one silver and one bronze medal. Suni returned to the Olympics in Paris this year, where she won a gold medal and two bronze.

Suni continued to have her dad’s back after his accident. “On the anniversary, I texted him and said, ‘Dad, I’m so proud of how far you’ve come and that you’ve come back so strong,'” she told the outlet. “He is still in a wheelchair , but he can use his hands and he is getting better every day.”