Danell Leyva

Danell Leyva is a three-time Olympic medalist and has been acting since his retirement in 2016 Danell was born in Cardenas, Cuba on October 30th, 1991. After having severe asthma as a baby, his mother, Maria Gonzalez, fled from Cuba to find a better life for her children, Danell and his sister, Dayanis Mesa. After a 20-year long career in gymnastics that saw Danell Johan Leyva win three Olympic medals, two silver medals during the 2016 Rio Olympics on Parallel Bars and Horizontal Bar, and one bronze in the All-Around at the 2012 London Olympics, Danell moved to Los Angeles to pursue his passion in entertainment. Since his arrival to Los Angeles, Danell has appeared in multiple short films and web-series, and appeared on two episodes of the Nickelodeon show Paradise Run. Most notably, he was cast in a lead role for the short film Stealth that premiered at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. He has appeared on several nationwide commercials with companies such as Target, Diesel, Uber Eats etc. Danell has also participated as a contestant on multiple unscripted shows such as the fifth season of the Univision show Mira Quien Baila where he finished in third place, and was featured on two episodes of season 11 of American Ninja Warrior on NBC. After the episode aired on September 2nd, 2019, Danell went viral. He was on the front page of Reddit as well as trending on Twitter.