Olympian Gus Kenworthy, 34, first shot to fame after taking silver in slopestyle skiing at the 2014 Sochi Games. His mind-bending tricks and joy-giving smile made him an American golden boy, but it was his coming out the following year that flipped him into the big time, raising his global profile and accelerating even his future access to Hollywood – when the Winter Olympics arrives in Italy next year, in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, he will be the sole competitor to have starred in Will & Grace, American Horror Story and RuPaul’s Drag Race. “It’s been so fun,” he says. “I love being on set, so I’m open to it if the right part comes along, but there are other things I want to focus on.”
First up, a return to the Olympics as a representative of Team GB (he was actually born in Essex to an English mother before moving to Telluride, Colorado, where skiing was part of his PE lessons). When we speak, he’s at a training camp in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. “There’s not a formal British team here, really, but I’m with my coach, plus Zoe Atkin, who’s the world champion competing for Great Britain, and her coach. I love them so much.”
Kenworthy was just 24 years old when he told ESPN The Magazine that he was gay. It was a time when snowboarders still called their discipline rivals “skier fags”. When he went to the next Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, in 2018, he and Adam Rippon were the first two openly gay men to compete for a US Olympics team. “For men, sport has such a machismo attitude around it,” he says. “A lot of gay men stop pursuing sport because of it. I’ve met so many people who told me that they were collegiate level, or on the road to the Olympics, NBA or NFL, and they stopped completely. It didn’t feel safe; they didn’t feel welcome. That’s why it’s important to speak up on it.” Even a decade after his public coming out, he still finds himself code-switching. “I’ve definitely been at events and said, ‘Bye, bro,’ to someone and then they’ll walk away and my boyfriend will be like, ‘Bro? You said bro to someone?’”
After a 12th place in Pyeongchang, Kenworthy was disappointed to come eighth in the freeski halfpipe in Beijing in 2022, his first appearance for Team GB. “Eighth in the world is great,” he says, smiling, “but it’s not what I wanted.” He retired from the sport, throwing himself into auditioning in LA and enjoying something of a global party lifestyle. But the allure of the slopes is strong. “I was watching a lot of the events last year and I was really impressed by the skiing,” he says of announcing his comeback in May. That competitive streak returned: “I was like, ‘Fuck, I feel like I could still do this.’” On snow or screen, Kenworthy isn’t done making his mark.
Cover look: cotton vest, Merz B Schwanen. Cotton/cashmere shorts and cashmere socks, The Elder Statesman. Leather boots, Gucci. Wool hat, Bode. Photograph: Clay Stephen Gardner. Styling: Justin Fernandez.