Don’t expect to see U.S. Winter Olympic champion Amber Glenn in the White House anytime soon.
The figure skater – who won gold in the team event at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan Cortina – said she will not celebrate with the current president, Donald Trump, echoing the position of the champion US women’s ice hockey team, which declined an invitation after controversy erupted over Trump’s attack on them.
“I choose not to do that either, so I don’t blame them at all,” Glenn told us weekly Thursday at the GLAAD Media Awards in Los Angeles.
“It is our right to choose what we will and will not endorse, and I think it is a decision that every individual has the right to make,” she added.
Glenn, who became Italy’s first openly queer woman to represent the US in Olympic figure skating, criticized Trump’s treatment of the LGBTQ+ community at a press conference, saying it had been “a difficult time”.
The athlete, who identifies as pansexual and bisexual, later said she had received a “frightening amount of hate/threats” following the comments.
She wrote online: “When I chose to use one of the amazing things about the United States of America (freedom of speech) to convey how I feel as an athlete competing for Team USA during a difficult time for many Americans, I am now receiving a frightening amount of hate/threats for simply using my voice when asked how I feel.”
