Effective Right Now Immediately, Adam Rippon Is Assuming His Rightful Place on NBC

NBC couldn’t even wait four more years to offer figure skater Adam Rippon the Olympic commenter’s post for which he was destined, and the network has hired him to stick around in Pyeongchang! Doing something, I dunno, “working across various platforms,” according to NBC spokesperson Greg Hughes, but who cares! They could have just run some periodic B-roll Rippon footage in between the sports and I’d probably stay, but now they have all but secured my and my demographic’s Hulu live TV subscriptions for another week.

Rippon has quickly earned wild popularity as a fashion tastemaker and bronze medalist who also finds time to watch the same TV shows as us. In the void of out gay Olympians (skier Gus Kenworthy and speed skater Brittany Bowe are the only other openly queer athletes representing the US this year), he has also stepped into/been assigned the position of “gay rights ambassador” to the Olympics, which, for an event that represents the entire world, remains insanely hush-hush about figure skating or doing pretty much anything while gay. He’s had to clear up the fact to USA Today that “my sexuality has absolutely zero to do with getting to the Olympics or being an Olympian.”

Outsports has criticized NBC for “straight-washing” its coverage (which has been approx. 100,000 hours of heteronormative home insurance commercials and 5 hours of sports), so finally we’ll get to hear more from one of the more outspoken people (though fortunately not the only one) who has used the spotlight to speak for justice. Fox News will be furious!