Olympic drama off the ice as NBC drops analyst accused of smearing her former skating partner. Both are LGBTQ.

NBC has dropped Olympic ice dancing champion Gabriella Papadakis from its upcoming Winter Olympics coverage after her former skating partner Guillaume Cizeron accused her of conducting a smear campaign in a new memoir.

In a statement to The Athletic, NBC said that it’s their “responsibility to deliver coverage that our audience can trust to be free of bias” and “that is no longer possible given the circumstances.”

Skating as a team, Papadakis, 30, and Cizeron, 31, won the 2022 Olympic ice dancing gold and silver in 2018, along with five world championships and a slew of other titles. They retired from competition in 2024, but Cizeron came back last year with new partner, Laurence Fournier Beaudry, and the pair will skate in the Milan Olympics. Cizeron is gay and Papadakis bisexual.

In excerpts of her memoir “So as Not to Disappear,” Papadakis accused Cizeron of being “controlling” and “demanding,” and whose “coldness freezes her blood.”

“The idea of being alone with him terrorizes me,” she writes.

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Cizeron called the allegations groundless and said the timing of the book just weeks before the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics was damaging.

Related

Guillaume Cizeron is Outsports 2022 Male Athlete of the Year
Guillaume Cizeron, with ice dance partner Gabriella Papadakis, won Olympic and World Championship gold.

Gay skater Guillaume Cizeron wins ice dancing gold with Gabriella Papadakis
Cizeron and Papadakis dazzled as they dominate the ice dancing competition.

“In the face of the smear campaign targeting me, I want to express my incomprehension and my disagreement with the labels being attributed to me,” Cizeron told French media. “These allegations arise at a particularly sensitive time… thereby raising questions about the underlying intentions behind this campaign. I also wish to denounce the content of the book, which contains false information, attributing to me, among other things, statements I have never made and which I consider serious.

“For more than 20 years, I have shown deep respect for Gabriella Papadakis, despite the gradual erosion of our bond, our relationship was built on equal collaboration and marked by success and mutual support.”

Papadakis begin working for NBC as an ice dancing analyst last year, and in its announcement dropping her made clear it was not taking sides in the allegations.

“We respect Gabriella’s right to tell the story of her life and career. At the same time, her new book creates a clear conflict of interest. Our responsibility is to deliver coverage that our audience can trust to be free of bias — whether actual or perceived — and we regret that is no longer possible given the circumstances,” the network told the Athletic.

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