Olympic Gold Medalist Noah Lyles Reveals His Shocking Cult Past

Noah Lyles had an incredible time at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

After snagging bronze in Tokyo 2020, the track star hit the jackpot at the 2024 Paris Games. He ran his way to gold in the men’s 100-meter final on August 4, and just days later, he added a bronze to his collection in the men’s 200-meter final on August 8.

But the celebrations took a hit when Noah Lyles tested positive for COVID-19, forcing him to bow out of the men’s 4×100 Meter relay on August 9.

Before becoming a gold medal winner at the 2024 Paris Olympics, Noah Lyles grew up in a cult, which led him to wrestle with his beliefs.

Lyles wasn’t letting COVID ruin his Olympic dreams in Paris. Just two days before the men’s 200-meter final on August 8, the Team USA track star tested positive for the virus. Despite battling the aches and pains, Lyles pushed through and snagged a bronze medal in the race.

Following the podium win, he chatted with People Magazine and revealed he was feeling “a lot better," though he was still feeling some fatigue.

“I was just telling my girlfriend, I’m like, ‘I am so tired,’ and she’s like, ‘Well, you did just win the 100 with COVID, and still not getting as much rest as possible,” Lyles said of his girlfriend, fellow Olympic sprinter Junelle Bromfield of Jamaica.

“[I was like] ‘Let’s try and keep this as normal as possible,’ knowing that I’ve handled stuff like this in the past,” he continued. “I’ve run very close to after having contracted COVID, many times. [It’s about] knowing that I was made for moments like this and I've trained all my life."

"I know that I can go out there and still put on a great performance, and it’s an all or nothing scenario, because nothing is promised tomorrow. So I might as well take advantage of today," Lyles concluded.

Now that the 2024 Paris Olympics have ended, the athletes are starting to readjust to their everyday lives, which includes interviews with major outlets to talk about their upbringings and medal wins--Lyles included.

“I actually grew up in a cult,” the track-and-field star revealed during a recent episode of the “Everybody Wants to Be Us” podcast, per Us Weekly. “It was a cult. It just wasn’t at the level of, ‘Yeah, OK. We’re gonna drink the Kool-Aid.’ But it was super strict.”

While he didn't name the organization behind the cult, he told listeners, “All the moms had to be homeschooling their kids and the father was the head of the household, and the church told you who you could date, who you couldn’t date. If you got married, it had to be through [them]. That type of behavior.”

Due to its strict rules, Lyles and his family decided to leave the organization and relocate to North Carolina.

“We were going to start [at] another church, only to figure out they wanted to do the same thing except they wanted to be the head instead of, not the tail,” he explained on the podcast. “So, we left that, but that kind of really messed up my view [of the] church, and it definitely messed up my mom’s view, so it took her a long time."

He continued, "And even now, she still struggles to trust churches in general, but she never lost her faith in the religion.”

Lyles admitted he wrestled with his beliefs after the experience, but his mother, Keisha Caine, offered some sage advice that helped him restore his faith.

“Everybody gets that idea of, you know, ‘Is there really a God?’ And something that I love is when I was young, she said, ‘God says when you lack faith, ask for a test, and he will provide the test,’” he noted. “And I was like, ‘OK, I’m gonna ask for the test.’”

He then requested his “test” in ninth grade after falling ill with swine flu just before the World Youth track-and-field team trials.

“[I said], ‘God, if you can provide me a way to make this team, I’m not gonna deny it anymore that this is your plan.’ I made the team,” he recalled. “I was the youngest person to make the team, and I made the team as an alternate but got to run and made it all the way to being ranked ninth in the world. I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m sold.’”

He has focused on running ever since.