Adam Rippon blasts Lance Armstrong for “transphobic” comments not aired on “Stars on Mars”

Disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong made waves on Fox’s reality series Stars on Mars earlier this summer for clashing with fellow contestants over whether transgender athletes should be allowed to compete against cisgender athletes. Now, the show’s winner, out Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon, has opened up about what really happened behind the scenes.

Rippon says that when Armstrong, who was stripped of his Tour de France titles and an Olympic bronze medal in 2012 for using performance-enhancing drugs, brought up his opinions about trans athletes, “everything changed” on the show.

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“In the show, it’s a few minutes, but in reality, that was a long-winded conversation and it really shifted the focus,” Rippon told Entertainment Weekly. “It changed my experience totally. It was not the same after that.”

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In the July 10 episode of the show, Armstrong brought up the topic of trans people competing in sports. Noting that one of his “most key employees” was transitioning and that he is fully supportive of that, he went on to argue that transgender athletes should compete against other transgender athletes in separate divisions and categories from cisgender men and women. “What’s unfair about that?” he asked.

Fellow contestant Tinashe countered that what Armstrong was suggesting would only “otherize” trans athletes further by excluding them “from the same spaces and places that everyone else is.”

Armstrong said he wasn’t arguing for excluding anyone.

The footage aired on Fox didn’t show Rippon engaging with Armstrong at all. He merely told fellow contestant Ariel Winter that Armstrong’s comments were “disheartening.”

But Rippon told EW that he did, in fact, reluctantly speak to Armstrong about the issue.

“What happens next is Lance comes over and we have a conversation, me and him, for probably the next 15 or 20 minutes. It just wouldn’t end,” Rippon says. “Every time I’m saying something, I’m lilting, like it’s over, let’s just stop. He couldn’t let it go. And it made me wildly uncomfortable.”

“I wanted to be a representation of the LGBTQ+ community and that was a moment where I wanted to say something, but I don’t know everything about being a trans person,” Rippon explained. “I do know that a lot of the things that were said that were not on the show were very transphobic, and I’m glad that trans people didn’t need to watch what was said. It was not nice and it was not good in any sort of way.”

On the show, Tinashe noted that Armstrong was the wrong person to be discussing the issue, and Rippon agreed.

“The person talking about this is the most recognized cheater in all of sports,” he said. “So it’s just not the right time, it’s not the right person.”

In late June, Armstrong launched a week-long, seven-episode daily series on his podcast The Forward discussing the issue of trans athletes with guests “from all sides of the debate,” including some, like Caitlyn Jenner and Carole Hooven, who have been critical of trans women competing against cis women.

“Is there not a world in which one can be supportive of the transgender community and curious about the fairness of Trans athletes in sport yet not be labeled a transphobe or a bigot as we ask questions?” Armstrong wrote in a June 24 tweet.

Is there not a world in which one can be supportive of the transgender community and curious about the fairness of Trans athletes in sport yet not be labeled a transphobe or a bigot as we ask questions? Do we yet know the answers? And do we even want to know the answers?

— Lance Armstrong (@lancearmstrong) June 25, 2023

Rippon told EW that it makes “total sense” that Armstrong would continue talking about the topic, as he refused to let it go on the set of Stars on Mars.

“Everybody was like, ‘Stop talking, please stop talking about this. Let’s just focus on the mission. We’re just filming a show here about pretending to be on Mars, just focus on that,’” Rippon recalled. “He couldn’t let it go and nobody wanted to let him have the last word… He was obsessed with not being able to get the last word.”