Adam Rippon Named Among Time's 100 Most Influential People

LOS ANGELES, CA — Los Angeles’s own Adam Rippon, darling of the 2018 Olympics and America’s first openly gay winter Olympic medalist, is one of Time's "100 Most Influential People of 2018."

What makes him so special, noted Cher who introduced him for Time magazine, is his courage.

“All figure skaters are beautiful, but Adam Rippon is different. He isn’t just a beautiful skater. He has humility, grace and an incredible sense of humor,” Cher wrote. “You could see in the leather-harness suit he wore to the Academy Awards that he isn’t afraid to take chances. It wasn’t about the suit, really. It was about the fact that he dares to be different in a world where being different always comes with a cost. I thought it was fabulous, of course.”

Rippon won a bronze medal in the figure skating team event, but it was his personality, his quirky interviews and willingness to challenge the Vice President’s homophobic policies that turned him into an icon.
Cher summed his influence by relating to her own childhood, when there were few role models for people who dared to be different.

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“Adam is a skater who happens to be gay, and that represents something wonderful to young people,” she wrote. “When I was young, I had no role models—everyone looked like Sandra Dee and Doris Day. There was nobody who made me think, Oh, I could be like them.”

For his part, Rippon said he was humbled by the honor.

“When I got the news that I was in @TIME 100 this year, I won’t lie, I cried,” he tweeted.I promise to continue to help others who are struggling or feel unheard. Just being yourself can be so powerful.”

Click here for the full Time article.

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Photo: Olympic medalist Adam Rippon attends the 90th Annual Academy Awards at Hollywood & Highland Center on March 4, 2018 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)