NEW YORK — It’s 8:04 a.m. Alysa Liu stands in a crowded green room inside Rockefeller Center, lowkey freaking out.
Yes. Alysa Liu. The 20-year-old figure skater who snatched America’s heart by owning the biggest stage of her life. At last month’s Milan Olympics, with the gold on the line, she proved cooler than the ice on which she danced to Donna Summer’s “MacArthur Park.” As she put it, bringing “Oakland to Milan.” Liu displayed no angst. The tension compelled viewers to sway with her, panic with her every jump, sigh in relief after each flawless landing. She, however, ignored the pressure, deeming it unworthy of accompanying her glee.
That same newly minted superstar now has awe in her eyes at a pending connection. The gold medalist, finally, looks rattled.
“I just saw him,” she says, eyes widened, smile stretched by nerves.
Daniel Radcliffe, 36, the actor famous for playing Harry Potter, was sitting in hair and makeup, preparing for his appearance. The Tony Award-winning actor came to promote his newest Broadway play, “Every Brilliant Thing.”
It’s about an hour into the first stop of Liu’s three-day media tour, which began at the “Today” show. She arrived just shy of 7 a.m., with a black puff coat and a black scarf. Liu got into town the night before after a five-hour drive from Massachusetts, where she kept her commitment and did three shows for The Skating Club of Boston. And Nike kept her up past 1 a.m. with a stylist, choosing outfits for her appearances. Still, Liu showed up smiling like a sunny Friday afternoon. No coffee. No energy drink. She doesn’t need either. Her bubbliness brews internally.
She bounced through the first tasks. She did two on-camera teases and an interview with the “Today” crew — Craig Melvin, Hoda Kotb and Carson Daly — delivering her trademark ease to the process. Even about her name.
She confirmed it’s pronounced Lee-oh, but, she said, “I’m good with whatever.”
“It’s actually Ah-LEE-sa Lee-oh,” she said. “But if people can’t get Ah-LEE-sa, they’re not going to get Lee-oh.”
Hearing “Ah-LISS-a Lou” doesn’t bother her, though. Another example of the voluntary nature of her disposition.
Plus, the outfit popped. She beamed about her threads, curated by Oscar-nominated costume designer and stylist Miyako Bellizzi, a fellow Bay Area native. She wore blue camo denim shorts that sagged slightly despite a thick black belt lined with silver studs. A navy blue Nike shirt under a navy blue blazer hugged her torso, creating a dark canvas for her two gold medals. Punctuating the fit, a pair of blue Nike Moon Shoes from a collaboration with French designer Simon Porte Jacquemus.
Look good, feel good, right? But Liu loses a bit of her cool when she gets wind that Harry Potter is in the building.
“The wizard is here?!” she asks excitedly.
The way Radcliffe scurries out of his chair and into the green room to meet Liu illustrates her visceral impact. It’s more than her becoming America’s first figure skater to win women’s singles gold in the Olympics since 2002. It’s the way Liu won, the aura she exudes, the mindset she espouses that touches people deeply.
“Holy f— s—, you!” Radcliffe exclaims in his London accent, walking hurriedly towards Liu and hugging her. “Holy f— s—.”
Alysa Liu meets actor Daniel Radcliffe in the “Today” show green room. (Marcus Thompson / The Athletic)
They high-five as Liu jumps with excitement. After Radcliffe satiates the cell phone cameras, he asks for a private moment with the gold medalist. He brags about how jealous his girlfriend would be that he got to meet America’s newest darling. He asks Liu if she really did her own smiley piercing.
“If you want, I can pierce you,” Liu offers, after confirming it was her handiwork. “I’ve pierced three people.”
Liu arrives at an ideal moment in a nation starved for lightness. No one gets universal approval in this divided country. But few garner approval ratings as high as Liu currently boasts. America is digesting her like comfort food.
No doubt youth permits such bliss. But Liu’s spirit resonates in part because of the context it contradicts. Public life hums with perennial grievance and anxiety. But Liu’s performance, her personality, cut through it.
“I am a very joyful person,” she says. “My whole thing is I want to share what I feel with other people. I want people to feel the way I feel, or feel something they’ve never felt before. I think that’s, like, the whole point of storytelling is to make people feel something. Art, figure skating, movies — all that is to make people feel something they aren’t feeling. And I’m really grateful that I’m able to do that. It’s literally my dream.”
It’s 9:29 a.m. Liu, back in the puff coat, hops out of a black SUV onto Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan. The next stop on her tour is a photo shoot and interview with Rolling Stone at the private social club Moss New York. Construction work hides the entrance, giving Liu time to get her first full experience with paparazzi.
One photographer comes out of nowhere, rapidly snapping photos of Liu, who stands giggling while her team finds the entrance. Liu lives in front of a camera. She takes pictures with just about anyone who asks. But this reveals a different ball game. Her paradigm about celebrity and her place in it begins transforming right there on the sidewalk.
“This is crazy,” she said. “Paparazzi?”
A dazzling free skate in Milan delivered Olympic gold for Alysa Liu. (Jamie Squire / Getty Images)
Liu’s social media followers have exploded. She crossed seven million Instagram followers while in New York, from a few hundred thousand before the Olympics. Fake accounts have cropped up. Unauthorized merchandise flies off digital shelves. Established celebrities fawn over her. Stephen Curry invited her family to a Golden State Warriors game. Reps for the immensely popular K-pop boy band BTS reached out. The scope of her magnitude comes into clearer focus.
Liu’s agent, Yuki Saegusa, senior vice president at WME, warns about autograph seekers selling her signature on eBay. She instructs Liu to ask whom to make the autograph out to, because putting an actual name can weed out the collectors.
This new life is coming fast. She’s quickly learning about the magnetic properties of a gold medal and the special place reserved in America for women’s figure skating champions. But as inviting as her aura may seem, Liu diligently protects her peace.
She quit figure skating in 2022, at 16, to reclaim that peace. She returned in 2024, promising never to relinquish it again. She has no problem saying no. Before she became a household name at the Olympics, she declined an invitation to a San Francisco 49ers game. After the Olympics, she nixed a parade the City of Oakland wanted to throw for her, but compromised with Mayor Barbara Lee for a celebration rally at City Hall. That’s on Thursday.
After this media tour, she planned to escape to the seclusion of training for the World Championships later this month. But Saturday, it was announced she’s skipping the event, a luxury Olympic gold medalists tend to take.
The frenzy excites her now. It’s still stunning, the relentless love she receives. At each stop, people can’t wait to tell her what she means to them. But the concern of overexposure, of managing the demands of her stardom, bubbles to the surface. Liu talked about her first brush with paparazzi all the way into a conference room at Moss, her base during this stop on the tour. Before swapping into the next outfit, she took a moment to gnaw away on a treat.
The “Today” chef made an edible gold medal out of her favorite cereal, Lucky Charms. A half-pound patty of sugar. Liu tasted it on air with Al Roker and Dylan Dreyer. She’s been taking periodic bites since.
Alysa Liu and her Lucky Charms gold medal, a gift from the “Today” crew. (Marcus Thompson / The Athletic)
Food is part of Liu’s rebellion. The terms of her return to competition included eating what she wanted. Figure skating can be an incubator for eating disorders, especially in young women. Wispy frames provide an advantage. And the sport provides a steady diet of stress.
Liu went through it, deprivation as discipline, her first 11 years in the sport. That’s why, in her return, control is non-negotiable. She wears what she wants. Skates to music she loves. Performs when she wants. And if she wants pasta or lava cake, so be it.
She’s been unbeatable on the biggest stages after coming out of retirement, winning the 2025 World Championships, the 2025 Grand Prix Final and the 2026 Olympics. Her approach isn’t void of discipline, just filled with trust in herself. She doesn’t do triple axels anymore, or the quadruple jumps she did as a dainty teen. But she won anyway, proving her competitive streak and appreciation for the sport can properly regulate her process. Expertise over obsession.
“Your confidence,” Chris Witherspoon, an entertainment journalist and pop culture expert, told Liu in the green room of “Today.” “The way you came at 110 percent and knew you’d be that girl, it’s inspiring to me. … Teach a MasterClass.”
While Liu munches on the Lucky Charms, Isabelle McLemore, vice president of communications for U.S. Figure Skating, organizes the next costume from the stack of clear garment bags: a black Nike hoodie with red interior and matching black Nike shorts, with a red and white plaid Pendleton jacket, a pair of shiny black Nike Shox and white socks. Eventually, her medals will serve as priceless jewelry. The gold discs, heavier than they appear, make a distinct ping as they bounce off each other when she walks.
“They have a lot of scratches from clinging together,” she says. “I like them with the scratches.”
Liu loves this fit. It’s so street. So Bay Area. Hoodies are an all-seasons fashion in Oakland.
