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Johnny Weir chats with Greg In Hollywood about inner-strength, the Olympics and Evan Lysacek

2010 GLAAD Media Awards by you.

I’ve become a Johnny Weir groupie.

I’m completely charmed and dazzled by this gifted Olympian who most certainly marches to his own drummer.

At the GLAAD Media Awards over the weekend, I got to gab with Johnny a bit and he could not have been nicer.

Here is our chat:

Q. You’re such a hero the way you conducted yourself at the Olympics in the face of some difficult circumstances. Where did that strength come from?

A. I find that I’m very strong and that’s something that was instilled in me by my parents. They never told me not to do something or to do it this way, they always pushed my brother and I to do everything the way we thought was right. When you don’t have the constant badgering from family and friends, then you tend to grow and be unique and strong in who you are.

I’ve fallen down more than I’d like to admit in life but I always get up, and I always dust myself off and I keep moving because my parents taught me that.

http://www4.pictures.gi.zimbio.com/Figure+Skating+Championships+Day+6+PCPDkNKDaCgl.jpgQ. Your performance in the long program at the Olympics was superb. I could not believe the judges ranked you sixth. How did you feel about your scores?

A. There’s a lot of politics in figure skating and there was already an American assured of a medal when I took the ice. So that, in a way, was already the first nail in the coffin of me not winning a medal at the Olympics. Of course I was so upset and so depressed that I didn’t win a medal. But at the same time, I did the best I could. I rocked. I did the best that I possibly could, I took that audience on a journey and that’s the best that I could have done.

A medal was something that I could not control at all but of course, as an athlete, we don’t like to lose.

Q. It was the performance of a lifetime.

A. It was. It was the performance of my lifetime, probably the best performance I’ll ever give.

Q. Are you enjoying yourself now post-Olympics?

A. I’m so enjoying my life, I’m so enjoying my ribcage (gestures as his skimpy, ribcage baring shirt).

Q. Everyone pays attention to everything you say now. You make a little remark on Chelsea Lately about [Olympic Gold Medalist] Evan Lysacek and it’s all over the place. Some thought when you winked at Chelsea you were confirming that you think Evan is gay. Anything you want to say about that?

A. Well, the Evan situation, I was kind of winking at Chelsea to stop and people misconstrued it as me implying something that I wasn’t implying. I don’t know Evan well enough to say anything about his personal life.

A.

FILE UNDER: GLAAD, Interviews, Sports

Comments

(All comments are reviewed before being published, and I review submissions several times per day.)

10 Remarks

  1. I’m inclined to believe him about the wink. I don’t think he was trying to imply Evan is gay. Whether it was, as he said, to get her to stop, or as others have said, to imply that Tanith was never Evan’s actual girlfriend, but that their ‘relationship’ was a calculated move between two friends, for appearances’ sake, I don’t buy that he was outing Evan, because he knows that sexuality IS a personal matter.

    Perez Hilton, he ain’t.

  2. Lovely interview.

    I was terribly upset for Johnny that he wasn’t given the scores his two skates were worthy of. This on top of the fact that other skaters were overscored on skates not carried off as well as were Johnny’s. Yes, I was very upset.

    As for eye-winkgate, pfft, a bunch of to do made over nothing.

  3. Johnny got the scores that he deserved. Two footed landings in the short program and failing to complete all the required revolutions on a sit spin in the free scare all resulted in grade of execution deductions. Furthermore, in one interview after the olympics Johnny stated thatt he knowingly watered down the transitions in his free skate which results in a lower score. Now he claims it is “politics”. It is time for Johnny to stop the blame game. Furthermore, I find it a little sad at Johnny’s fixation with Evan. The explanation about the “wink” was lame at best. Johnny was interviewed in LA shortly after the olympics and pretty much admitted that the rivalry with Lysacek, as depicted on his show, was not accurate and that his producers played it up for Tv ratings. I guess that Johnny thinks that his only way to fame is to portray others in a false light.

  4. (Mandy) Johnny didn’t two-foot a single landing in any of his performances these Olympics. He had only one detectable bobble (the spin in the freeskate) and that was it. He was underscored. Johnny does not have a “fixation with Evan” rather it is the media that has a fixation with continually bringing up Evan to him in every interview. Johnny has been polite about this but it is clearly beginning to irk him. Johnny never brings up Evan himself and politely tries to steer the conversations in other directions. I’ve witnessed him do this in every interview in which Evan and Evan’s wonderful accomplishments are brought up to him. I think it’s unfair to say Johnny is portraying others in a false light when he’s said nothing critical about Evan in any interview since the Olympics I’ve seen. He’s always complimenting his work ethic, his achievements and wishing him well. I believe the Chelsea Handler interview was exactly what he said- misconstrued. And once again he did NOT bring up Evan. Should he begin to institute an “Evan question ban” at every public appearance?

  5. Johnny got the scores that he deserved. Two footed landings in the short program and failing to complete all the required revolutions on a sit spin in the free scare all resulted in grade of execution deductions. Furthermore, in one interview after the olympics Johnny stated thatt he knowingly watered down the transitions in his free skate which results in a lower score. Now he claims it is “politics”. It is time for Johnny to stop the blame game. Furthermore, I find it a little sad at Johnny’s fixation with Evan. The explanation about the “wink” was lame at best. Johnny was interviewed in LA shortly after the olympics and pretty much admitted that the rivalry with Lysacek, as depicted on his show, was not accurate and that his producers played it up for Tv ratings. I guess that Johnny thinks that his only way to fame is to portray others in a false light.

  6. If Johnny had hit every element of his programs cleanly, he would have still not gotten a medal. His programs were not as technically difficult as those that finished ahead of him. Time to stop playing the ” politics” blame game. I guess it is OK for the US to have two female figure skating medalist at one time during past Olympics, but for some reason it was not an option to have more than one US man to medal this year….LOL at the lame excuse

  7. Some popular blogger wrote a criticism of Weir, calling him a hypocrite for this wink because Weir won’t come out, yet he appeared to be outing Evan. When an interviewer asked Weir what he thought of the critic’s statement, he immediately began spouting and defending his usual speel about not feeling that he has to come out. He did NOT deny that the wink had been meant a malicious implication about Evan at that time, though there’d been every opportunity to clarify what had been his meaning. Only now that it’s become apparent that many people disapproved of his actions is he suddenly making excuses and trying to say they have the wrong idea. In his latest press release, the first sentence demeans what other skaters are doing with their post-Olympic fame before stating that what Weir is doing is wonderful; classless. Now he’s making a record with some lowlife producer who is obsessed with the eff word. The best and most recent is that, after spending two days at important gay events, he told Gayle King he is given to flights of fancy from day to day and just might decide to marry a woman. IN HIS DESPERATION TO STAY IN THE CLOSET, THE IDIOT PUBLICLY CONFIRMED THE CONSERVATIVE ASSERTION THAT HOMOSEXUALITY IS A ‘CHOICE’ THAT CAN BE TURNED ON AND OFF AT WILL. Just go away, Johnny Weir. Just go away.

  8. Johnny had no two-footed landings. Neither was he marked down for any two-footed landings. Quit pulling facts out of your asses. He had an edge call for his flip (common, hard for him to fix) in his SP yet was marked down more harshly for it at the Olympics than he had his ENTIRE CAREER. As a result he removed it from his free program and replaced it with another jump. His jump content was no less technically difficult than Lysacek’s and he executed it cleanly. Whether Johnny should have gotten the bronze is highly debatable but not impossible given how arbitrary the PCS seem to be and the scores Plushenko (if you want to talk about watered down programs…) was awarded in PCS. He was clearly hosed by the judges and undermarked where some other skaters before him were overmarked.

    Politics is very much a part of judging in figure skating. You would have to be intentionally blind not to see it.

    Brandon: For someone who hates Johnny Weir so passionately, you sure know an awful lot about him. More so than I even do as a fan (Gayle King on the radio?). Bitter queen.

  9. WTF? Leave Johnny alone. He knows exactly what he’s doing; he’s been doing the same thing since the Torino olympics. It’s only because of the homophobic crap he’s had to endure following up to the Olympics that it’s suddenly become an issue. As for that wink, I highly doubt he’s insinutating anything. He was just playing with Chelsea, nothing more.

  10. The problem with Johnny’s sit-spin stemmed from a hole in the ice made by a previous skater. You should not mark him down for that. Right after the bobble, he reflexively stared at the ice for a half-second, noting the dent in the ice. Johnny skated the skate of his life.

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