Welcome to My World

by Johnny Weir

  With my thin frame barely holding up my costume, I began by popping another triple axel into a single. Then all ninety pounds of me started to fight back. I did the second triple axel followed by a difficult combination. I poured every last bit of strength that I had onto the ice and felt a small seed of hope bloom from my exhaustion. I went up for the last jump and then, bam, I fell on my face.

  Even though my condition was beyond terrible, I was in total disbelief that I hadn’t pulled it together. My scores went up, pronouncing a very bad fate: I got fifth. “I can’t believe you let this happen to yourself,” Galina said under her breath while smiling for the cameras and crowd.

  Immediately after the event, Galina ran into the hallway to start campaigning on my behalf, finding out who was in charge and what we had to say to get a spot on the World team. I was close enough to the top three that the committee could conceivably do something to get me to the World Championships.

  In first place was Jeremy Abbott, who was legitimately the best and deserved to go. Evan, a clear champion, was third and should also go. But the second place spot had gone to a skater fresh off the junior level who’d had that wow moment. He had won the silver medal in the Nationals fair and square but most likely wasn’t ready for a huge international event, especially one that determined the number of skaters that the United States would be able to send on its men’s roster to the 2010 Olympic Games. The problem was the committee couldn’t justify replacing a boy in second with me and keeping Evan, who was in third.

  The selection committee went behind closed doors right after the event to hash out the possibilities. A few people wanted to see the junior boy go to the Junior World Championships and learn to compete internationally before heading to the big leagues. But it would be especially painful if he got trounced the year the competition was held in the United States. I still had a chance.

  Finally, after a torturously long time, a little old woman shuffled out of the meeting room and taped a small piece of paper to the wall, right under our event results. I was named the second alternate for the World Championships, not even the first alternate. That was the end of my season.

  I was the only American skater in any discipline to win a world medal the previous season, and the reason that the United States could send three men to the World Championships in the first place, but none of it counted. I had no money in the bank as far as the federation was concerned. I had lost fair and square, by their count, and didn’t deserve a spot on the team.

  All I wanted to do now that my fate had been sealed was return to my hotel room and kill myself. But I still couldn’t leave. In a cruelly ironic twist, I had won the USFSA’s Skating magazine’s Reader’s Choice for favorite skater of the year and had to stick around to accept the award. The timing couldn’t have been worse. It seemed the federation thought so, too, because minutes before I took the podium with my prepared speech they had asked me earlier that month to give, someone let me know there would be no speech.

  I was glad that they didn’t give me the opportunity to speak, because nothing pretty would have come out of my mouth. Wearing a USA jacket that I borrowed from somebody else (another stipulation for getting onstage), I accepted the award, waved at the audience, got off the stage, then threw the jacket onto the floor and walked across it.

  Back at the hotel, everyone was gathered in the lobby bar celebrating the end of the event and the season. Skaters, coaches, parents of skaters, they were all drinking and having a merry time. That is, until I walked through the door. Every single person’s head turning to look at me made a collective whooshing sound. Then the place went silent in wait for my reaction.

  I made a beeline for my mom, who was sitting with Tara, my grandmother, and my aunt Diane. Everyone was crestfallen and drinking, even my grandma. I went to my mother, puffy-eyed and drinking Southern Comfort, and hugged her. Sometimes, as an athlete in a solitary sport like skating, it’s hard to realize there are all these people who want you to succeed as much, if not more than, you do.

  “I’m so sorry,” my mother said.

  It was too much for me to take. I could barely contain my disappointment, let alone that of my family and friends. I rushed out of that scene, past the gossiping skating mothers and my fans from Japan crying in the lobby.

  In my room, I called down to room service and ordered three orders of chicken fingers and french fries with a soup bowl full of ranch dressing. After it arrived, I locked the door and ate every last chicken finger and left only a random scattering of fries, crying the whole way through my meal.

  Then I called room service again and ordered some cake. I was having a major depressed-girl eating situation. A Russian woman, who worked in the kitchen and knew what had happened to me, sent an assortment: a giant piece of chocolate cake, apple cake, pie, and tiramisu. My spies are everywhere.

  I vowed right then and there that I would never do a thing to please anyone in that federation ever again. While I had never conformed to their ideal image, I had also never gone against them in any major way. Through all the years of gossip and judgments about me, I always felt the federation supported me in the most important way—by sending me to competitions. But after the debacle of last year’s tie at the Nationals, their decision to keep me off the World team felt like an unbearable stab in the back. I would never again wear the American jacket. Not because I don’t love and support my country, but I refused to wear anything that had to do with the United States Figure Skating Association.

  The grudge between me and my federation was permanent, and mutual. By the next Nationals in 2010, we were in a full-on war.

  I was really angry going into the Grand Prix season. After Evan, my chief rival, had won the World Championships, I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if I had been able to compete. As a gold world medalist, Evan was now the definitive reigning angel.

  Russia and Japan, my countries, had picked me for their Grand Prix events. When I got to my first event in Russia, it had been more than nine months since I had set foot in a competitive environment. The time away showed and I placed fourth. In Japan I redeemed myself, placing second before going on to the final, also held in Japan, where I placed third. Although Evan was in first, my place on the podium at least proved I was an Olympic contender.

  The whole season was sped up for the Olympics, so the Nationals came on the heels of the Grand Prix final, just after the new year. Back in good old Spokane, Washington, for the event, I knew that I would have to do well here to go to the Olympics. The big question was whether the federation would let me do well enough.

  At least this time I wasn’t at death’s door. As with most of the Grand Prix season, my short program went off without a hitch at the Nationals. Evan was ahead of me, and then Jeremy Abbott, who skated shortly after, also jumped ahead of me by a few points. Because he had skated the exact same elements as I had, it seemed like there was some clever judging going on. It had been a consistent theme in my season that my best was never good enough.

  Galina and I studied the score sheets as soon as an official posted them. The technical scores were unarguable, but the artistic ones were subjective. That’s where the “judging” came in. Among the numbers that were typical for a top-level athlete like myself (the range is normally between 7.0 and 9.0), I saw a few 6’s and then one number that made my eyes pop: a 3.75.

  “Galina, what is that?” I said.

  “Maybe it’s a misprint. It should be eight seven five. Eight and three can look like alike,” she said.

  “I don’t think so.”

  Galina marched up to one of the officials, demanding to know what had happened. A score that low wasn’t just bad for me, it was bad for the entire U.S. skating team. It sends a message to the rest of the skating world that one of America’s Olympic team is no better than a 3.75—unless they weren’t planning on sending me to the games.

  Although the identities of the judges are supposed to be kept from their scores for obvious rea
sons, the official assured us, “We know which judge it is. And we’re going to talk to him.”

  After what had happened at Nationals the year before, I had tried to stop caring about what anyone thought of me. I just wanted to show off what I slaved over every day of my life to the best of my abilities. But it was hard not to care. This sport was all about judgment. Those numbers determined my future.

  After the bitterness of receiving a 3.75, I didn’t exactly soar into my long program. I skated and did okay, nothing spectacular. Knowing I had no chance of winning, I skated to get the job of going to the Olympics done. It wasn’t a conscious decision, but an inevitable one.

  By the end of the competition, I was in third place, exactly where the federation wanted me. As I accepted my bronze medal, I became more and more incensed. While waiting for the ceremony, I heard that they were never going to leave me off the team because of my popularity and ability to get a mass audience to watch skating.

  After finally finishing the documentary about my life, Butch and Grämz premiered Pop Star on Ice that summer at festivals around the country. It was such a success that the Sundance Channel bought it and launched a multi-episode series, Be Good Johnny Weir, using the documentary as the first episode. A skater with a reality show on cable, I was a complete anomaly. As if to highlight that truth, Sundance aired the series’ promo during the Nationals that showed me in heels jumping out of a giant Fabergé egg. As I said, an anomaly.

  Apparently that helped me get an Olympic spot—otherwise they would have sent Ryan Bradley, who placed fourth, ahead of me. I was going to my second Olympics, not as a world-class competitor, but as a trained monkey to sell tickets. I was a token, and there’s no worse feeling.

  If the federation wanted attention for skating leading up to the Olympics—well, I got it for them. But perhaps not in exactly the fashion they had hoped.

  It started immediately after the Nationals with my exhibition skate to Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.” The genesis of the program—as far as I could go from the typical Disneyesque fare offered by my sport without getting censored on network TV—was a Fashion Week event the year before. V Man magazine had asked me to skate to Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” at a party celebrating the end of Fashion Week. Beyoncé was so not my style, so I suggested something by Lady Gaga.

  Ever since she hit the scene, I have been a fan of La Gaga. Although she’s obviously got an obscure vision, she’s a real artist. I love her music but am most inspired by the fact she clearly doesn’t give a shit about what anyone thinks. Gaga will wear a big old lobster on her head or a dress made out of Coke cans if that’s what she wants. Anyone that conforms bores me, and anyone who doesn’t has my complete admiration.

  The fashionistas at the party held at Manhattan’s Chelsea Piers loved the “Poker Face” number, and Perez Hilton put it up on his website where it came to the attention of the Lady herself. She invited me to her concert at Radio City Music Hall, where I sat next to her mother. Mama Gaga, a fan of figure skating, and I got along very well (in general, mothers love me). Dressed in a cashmere twin set and pearl necklace, she stood making the sign of the horns with her hand, sticking out her tongue, and screaming like crazy while her daughter humped a piano bench onstage. It was a wonderful family portrait. That’s how I’d like to think of my mom watching me skate.

  True to the spirit of Lady Gaga and her very sexual song, my exhibition number was also very suggestive. Wearing makeup that resembled disco-style war paint and a black, slightly sadomasochistic, corseted costume, I was really excessive for a figure skating show on NBC during a Sunday afternoon. No surprise, a big hoopla followed immediately because even though the program itself was a year old, for the majority of Americans it was their first taste of Johnny Weir since the last Olympics four years ago. Of course it was everywhere in the skating press, but all the entertainment shows featured it as well. People went crazy over watching this silly faggot in makeup, shaking his ass on the ice for TV.

  “Poker Face” amplified everything. I mean, it drove people insane. Those who loved me loved it, and those who hated me hated even more. My dirty, sexy dance also made my sexuality a hot topic of conversation. Again.

  All the gay websites brought up the question of whether or not I was gay—or, rather, they knew I was gay but couldn’t figure out why I was such a jerk that I wouldn’t talk about it. This was nothing new. I had been dealing with questions surrounding my sexuality since I was sixteen, when skating fanatics began bringing up the issue on message boards. But now, like my persona, the desire to know who I liked to do it with had grown a hell of a lot bigger. A lot of the gays got downright angry about my silence.

  In my career, the gays from an older generation had always been some of my biggest detractors because I refused to perform in the dog and pony show of the traditional coming-out story. When The Advocate, a national gay magazine, offered me a cover story after the 2006 Olympics if I came out in the article, I declined. There was no way I would seek publicity with an article focusing on my being gay when that is the smallest part of what makes me me.

  Many of those who had to fight for their rights to a gay life think I’m disrespectful because I haven’t been out and proud. I’m the first to say it takes enormous cojones to fight to change the world, but not everyone can be an activist. I could never be one; I’m way too passive-aggressive.

  Pressure is the last thing that would make me want to “join” a community. I don’t appreciate when others push anything on me. I had to fight my entire career in skating to be an individual and not play a role that I was told to, so I wasn’t about to step into the chorus line just because the gay community told me to. Yes, I have some very stereotypical gay traits (I love flowers, smelling good, fashion, and I’m an ice skater, for Christ’s sake). But I also have traits stereotypical of a Jewish mother (I’ll feed anyone I can get my hands on and have a wicked way with guilt) and a regular ol’ rural male (I’m not afraid to get my hands dirty and chicken fingers are my favorite food). Being gay is not a choice. I was born gay just as I was born white and male. I don’t hold pride parades for the color of my skin or the fact that I have a penis, so why would I do it because I was born a gay man?

  Putting people in boxes—whether the label is lesbian, gay, nerd, or freak—is just phony. In our society, too many people box up their personalities, stowing away aspects of themselves that don’t fit in the confining shape. In that sense, I wish people would come out, to live freely and openly. I wear my heart on my sleeve. Whether it’s with my mother, best friend, or lover, I give everything that I am. To me, gay and straight is only sex. Love is completely without boundaries. The pressure on me to come out was silly because I don’t ever remember being in.

  So the massive backlash against me in the gay media and community before the Olympics didn’t hurt me; it only made me dig my “closeted” heels in further. There were so many articles about my glaring flamboyance that Paris and I talked about how it would be the least shocking thing in the world if I did come out. Apparently everyone in the universe already knew I was a huge flamer. And as someone who’s gone far by being controversial in a beige world, the last thing I ever want is to be obvious.

  “I should come out as a Pacific Islander,” I said. “That would be really shocking.”

  “No, you should come out as a black woman,” Paris said.

  “A sumo wrestler.”

  “Lupus sufferer!”

  “French maid.”

  My true coming-out tale became a running joke between Paris and me, but our fantasies turned out to be far less absurd than the reality of my biggest pre-Olympics scandal. The one that eclipsed my un–family friendly performance after the Nationals and my mysterious sex life, sprung from the tiniest, most mundane detail imaginable.

  It all began when I added a patch of real fox fur to one shoulder of my costume because I thought it looked stunning. Anyone who knows me knows I love fur. I think it’s glamorous and lov
e the way it feels. I make no apologies for it.

  Like me, fur is one of those hot-button issues that stirs up love or hate in people. And the haters are particularly vicious, which I discovered immediately after giving an interview where I talked about the fur detail on my costume. Almost the instant the item posted on the Internet, Tara and Stephanie, my costume designer, were inundated with angry calls. I received hundreds of emails on Facebook about how much I sucked.

  Then it started to get really out of control. There were people threatening to obstruct my Olympic performance by showing up in Vancouver to throw blood on the ice while I skated. Someone faxed Tara a death threat and said my head was worth a few million dollars (I was more upset about the paltry bounty than the threat), so she called the FBI. Police were stationed at my rink and circled my apartment complex: a few followed me everywhere in the lead-up to the Olympics.

  Although the fur fiasco story had been reported everywhere from CNN to Perez Hilton, Galina hadn’t heard about it because she pretty much only consumed Russian media. And I didn’t involve her in these kinds of problems because it wasn’t part of her job description. She’s my coach; she teaches me ice skating and drives me crazy and that’s it.

  A couple of weeks before the Olympics, she called me on a Saturday afternoon.

  “Johnnychik, what’s happening?”

  “Galina, what do you mean?”

  “I just heard on Russian radio that you are in trouble because of the fox.”

  “Yes, Galina. But I didn’t want to bother you with that.”

  “But why? It’s fun!”

  “Well, I got death threats.”

  “Oksana Baiul once got a letter that had actual shit smeared on it because somebody from Ukraine didn’t like Oksana, or her mother, rest her soul.”