Johnny Weir will always be an attention-seeking brat who loves to wear fur. But he’s also the best thing to ever happen to men’s figure skating.
“U awake?”
This text message came from Johnny Weir at 2:30 a.m. on March 4. I’ve grown accustomed to receiving middle-of-the-night missives from the figure skater, pretty much every time I try to schedule an interview, which has been five times in the past five years. And while I’ve enjoyed the electronic give-and-take, I have a pathetic track record — 40% — when it comes to actually landing the interview. (We’ve spoken twice on the record — once for a Los Angeles Times piece about male figure skating costumes and a second time to get Weir’s response for an Advocate.com story on the death threats he’d received as a result of the fur he’d used in his costumes prior to the Vancouver Olympics.)
Weir is, as you’d expect, hard to pin down when not under the thumb of coach Galina Zmievskaya, who from the looks of her demeanor on the Sundance Channel reality show Be Good Johnny Weir could have run a Soviet gulag had she been born a few decades earlier. But now Weir was away from Zmievskaya, in Los Angeles for Oscar weekend, and had promised me a post-Olympics chat for this magazine. But by 2:30 a.m. on March 4, I still didn’t have an interview scheduled. I called. Repeatedly. And I even waited in his hotel lobby like a creep. Still, all I got in return were these texts. The content of his messages ranged from innocuous to playful to suggestive to downright overt — the overall gist indicating what we all already know: Johnny Weir is ... not straight.
There are many people who see Weir as a hangnail to be picked at and ripped off. Their reasoning isn’t easily teased apart: Weir’s diva sensibility and annoying coyness about his sexuality are matched only by his exquisite narcissism. I’m continually impressed by how he infuriates detractors — gay or straight, skating fan or foe — on so many levels, though my current frustration with him doesn’t quite match their rage. “What a disgusting, arrogant little twit,” one comment on Advocate.com reads. “I don’t hope he dies, but I do hope he loses.” Weir draws the ire of people who just can’t seem to ignore him. That elicits sympathy and a frenzied defense from his obsessed fans, which then incites his critics even more. When has an ice skater, other than Tonya Harding, attracted such hatred?
Weir did lose in Vancouver — technically. On the most important night of his competitive career, he made the sign of the cross at the sideboards like his idol, Oksana Baiul, always did. He pursed his lips, took his starting position, and proceeded to land eight triple jumps. He also bizarrely flubbed a sit spin, however, and failed to measure up to the intricate programs — however overdone — of several of the skaters who finished above him. But where many of his competitors delivered community theater–rate artistic performances, Weir gave us La Scala. He always has, ever since he burst onto the amateur scene in 2001, winning the world junior championships in puffy white sleeves and a blue vest decorated with silver-and-gold embroidery. In Vancouver, Weir floated across the ice in equally elegant garb to “Nocturne,” the stirring cello piece by Italian film composer Ennio Morricone. His face contorted with what appeared to be an overriding desire to create 4½ minutes of indelible beauty. Evan Lysacek won the gold (well deserved, even if Johnny fanatics are repelled by his style), but it was Weir who crowned himself with roses, literally, by evening’s end. Zmievskaya playfully tried to take the wreath off his head while waiting for the scores; Weir yanked it back and held his head high.
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