What Is Adam Rippon's Net Worth?
Adam Rippon is an American figure skater who has a net worth of $4 million. Rippon won the 2007-08 Junior Grand Prix Final, 2008 and 2009 World Junior Championships, 2008 U.S junior national title, 2010 Four Continents Championships, and 2016 U.S. National Championships, and in 2018, he became the United States' first openly gay athlete to win a medal (bronze in the figure skating team event) at the Winter Olympics. In 2018, Adam won the reality television competition "Dancing with the Stars" with partner Jenna Johnson, and since announcing his retirement from competitive figure skating in November of that year, he has served as a second coach to Mariah Bell, who won the 2022 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
Rippon has appeared on the television series "Will & Grace" (2018), "Ridiculousness" (2018), "RuPaul's Drag Race" (2019), "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" (2019–2020), "The Eric Andre Show" (2020), and "Sugar Rush" (2020) and in the Taylor Swift music video "You Need to Calm Down" (2019), and he is a co-host on MTV's "Messyness" (2021–present). In 2018, he earned a Teen Choice Award nomination for Choice Athlete: Male, and he published the memoir "Beautiful on the Outside" in 2019. In October 2020, it was announced that Adam would be developing and producing a figure skating comedy series for NBC.
Early Life
Adam Rippon was born Adam Richard Rippon on November 11, 1989, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Adam's parents, Kelly and Rick, divorced when he was 13 years old, and he has five younger siblings. Rippon grew up in Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, and he attended the Catholic elementary school Our Lady of Peace. After it was discovered that Adam was nearly deaf, he underwent corrective ear surgery as a baby. Rippon became interested in skating after attending a birthday party that was ice-skating themed, and he started skating at the age of 10. Within a few months, Adam's mother was driving him to Philadelphia for skating lessons twice per week, and when he was 11, Rippon was cast as a young Scott Hamilton in "Stars on Ice."
Career
From 2000 to 2007, Yelena Sergeeva was Adam's coach. In 2005, Rippon won a silver medal (Novice level) at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships and a gold medal (Junior division) at the Triglav Trophy in Slovenia. During the 2005–06 season, he placed sixth at the ISU Junior Grand Prix event, which took place in Croatia, and he finished in 11th place at the 2006 U.S. Championships and sixth at the 2007 U.S. Championships. After the 2007 U.S. Championships, Adam started working with coach Nikolai Morozov in Hackensack, New Jersey. During the 2007–08 season, he won a gold medal at the Harghita Cup in Romania, a silver medal at Bulgaria's Sofia Cup, and a gold medal at the ISU Junior Grand Prix Final, where he became the first male ice skater to score more than 200 points during a Junior level competition. He won the Junior title at the 2008 U.S. Championships, and the Professional Skaters Association honored him with the EDI Award for Best Men's Performance. Rippon won a gold medal at the 2008 Junior Worlds, and during the 2008–2009 season, he began competing at the senior level. He finished eighth at the 2008 Skate America, and at the 2008 Cup of Russia, he placed fifth overall and third in the short program.
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Adam moved to Toronto in December 2008 and began training with Brian Orser. He placed seventh at the 2009 U.S. Championships and won the 2009 Junior World Championships, making him the first single skater to win the World Junior title twice. Rippon won a bronze medal at the 2009 Trophée Eric Bompard, and he placed sixth at the 2009 NHK Trophy and fifth at the 2010 U.S. Championships. He was chosen to be a second alternate for the 2010 World Championships and Winter Olympics, and he placed first in the free skate and seventh in the short program at the 2010 Four Continents Championships. During the 2010–11 season, Adam won a bronze medal at the 2010 Skate Canada International, and at the 2010 Skate America, he finished fourth overall. He placed fifth at the 2011 U.S. Championships and 2011 Four Continents Championships, and in mid-2011, he returned to the U.S. to train with Jason Dungjen at the Detroit Skating Club. Rippon placed fourth at the 2011 Skate Canada and 2011 Trophée Eric Bompard, and he won a silver medal at the U.S. Championships in 2012. He started training with Rafael Arutyunyan in Lake Arrowhead, California, in September 2012.
Adam placed fourth at the 2012 Cup of China, eighth at the 2012 NHK Trophy, and fifth at the 2013 U.S. Championships, and he won a silver medal at the 2013 Skate America. He finished second at the 2014 CS Finlandia Trophy, tenth at the 2014 Skate Canada International, fifth at the 2014 Trophee Eric Bompard, and second at the 2015 U.S. Championships, then he won a gold medal at the 2016 U.S. Championships and bronze medals at the 2016 CS U.S. Classic, 2016 Trophée de France, and 2016 Skate America. Rippon finished in sixth place at the 2016 Grand Prix Final, and in early 2017, he had to withdraw from the U.S. Championships after spraining his ankle and fracturing his fifth metatarsal. He won a bronze medal at the 2017 CS Finlandia Trophy and silver medals at the 2017 Skate America and 2017 NHK Trophy, and he placed fourth at the 2018 U.S. Championships. Adam and the U.S. figure skating team won a bronze medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and he placed tenth overall in the individual men's event. Rippon announced his retirement on November 19, 2018.
Personal Life
In 2015, Adam publicly came out as gay in "Skating" magazine. He began a relationship with Jussi-Pekka Kajaala in 2018, and they married on December 31, 2021. In his memoir, Rippon revealed that he briefly dated Yuna Kim, a South Korean figure skater and Olympic champion, before coming out as gay. In early 2018, he criticized the White House for choosing Vice President Mike Pence to lead the U.S. delegation to the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, telling "USA Today Sports," "You mean Mike Pence, the same Mike Pence that funded gay conversion therapy? I'm not buying it." He added, "If it were before my event, I would absolutely not go out of my way to meet somebody who I felt has gone out of their way to not only show that they aren't a friend of a gay person but that they think that they're sick…I don't think he has a real concept of reality. To stand by some of the things that Donald Trump has said and for Mike Pence to say he's a devout Christian man is completely contradictory."
Adam campaigned for Senator Elizabeth Warren during the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries. That year he also donated money to the charitable organization The Okra Project, which is dedicated to "bringing home cooked, healthy, and culturally specific meals and resources to Black Trans People." Russian skater Alexei Yagudin responded to Adam's kind gesture by calling people like him "mistakes of nature" and asking, "When will you die?" Rippon criticized Yagudin for the abhorrent comments and donated $1,000 to The Okra Project in Alexei's name. In 2022, Adam criticized the International Olympic Committee for choosing Beijing to host that year's Winter Olympics, saying, "I think the Chinese are going to put on an amazing Games and I think they are going to make sure everyone is as safe as possible but when it comes to human rights, we're entering a Communist country."
