Alysa Liu Never Says Never

All month long, Bustle’s annual The Entertainers Issue is celebrating the performers and creators who lit up our screens and beyond in 2026.

Alysa Liu should be tired. The figure skater took home two gold medals at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics this year, breaking a longstanding drought for Team USA. Since then, she inked a deal with Nike, was named ESPN’s Breakthrough Athlete of the Year, got her face on a special-edition box of Lucky Charms, starred in a Laufey music video, and received the key to the city in her hometown of Oakland, California. But somehow she’s as exuberant as ever. It helps that — in addition to being preternaturally talented and famously tireless — she just turned 21 in August.

In many ways, Liu is a typical girl in her early 20s. She’s close with her family, even if her four younger siblings don’t find her particularly cool. (“Siblings are siblings,” she jokes.) She lives for her friends — she’s been watching fellow Olympian Amber Glenn on Dancing With the Stars this season. And like many of us, she got swept up in Heated Rivalry mania — though it took her a second to get it, given that she was, you know, prepping for the Olympics when it was first airing. (And thanks to the Laufey video and its “Wasian Avengers” cast, Liu now counts Hudson Williams as a pal.) Coming to terms with her own celebrity was, and has been, nothing short of strange: “When people would stop me on the street or wait outside the Olympic Village for me, I was like, ‘What is going on?’ I think that’s when I was like, ‘This don’t make sense!’”

Liu’s 2025-2026 season was something most athletes could only ever dream of, and it all came after she almost walked away from figure skating entirely. She shocked the skating community by announcing her retirement following the Beijing Olympics, but in 2024, she announced her return to the rink — this time on her own terms, with a focus on the joy she felt pursuing her sport. The hiatus, and her newfound mindset, paid off.

In January 2026, Liu took silver in the U.S. Championships, securing her a spot on Team USA. The next month, at the Milan Cortina Olympics, she won her first gold medal in the team event, and the second in women’s singles, becoming the first American woman to medal in figure skating at the games since Sasha Cohen in 2006, and the first to win gold since Sarah Hughes in 2002.

But it wasn’t just Liu’s on-rink success that catapulted her from figure skater to superstar. It was her unshakable positivity that won hearts and minds: the now-iconic jumping for joy after her gold medal performance, the touching moment when she hugged bronze medalist Ami Nakai, her supportive sisterhood with fellow Team USA “Blade Angels” Glenn and Isabeau Levito. And it was her commitment to maintaining her own boundaries — something Liu continues to prioritize as she embarks on another hiatus for the 2026-2027 competition season. If she’s proved anything, it’s that time off only makes her stronger.

On her favorite Olympic memory with the Blade Angels:

I really enjoyed the off-ice warm-ups before every session. A lot of times I would be warming up with Amber, and it was really fun just playing around with her. We were goofing around a lot and were like, “OK, now we’ve got to lock in.” I could not have asked for a better Olympic experience. It was so much fun, and we had each other. Imagine going to school and you don’t really got friends — it’s not as fun. But this time, I was like, “Dang, I’m here with my crew!”

On her TikTok-viral “Stateside” gala skate:

At the start of PinkPantheress’ “Stateside” music video, she does a lot of movements, and so some of [my choreography] was actually from her choreography, and then we tweaked it a little bit to fit my style, or fit on the ice. When she was doing it, I wanted to mimic it, so it only makes sense that people [on TikTok] wanted to mimic it when they saw it. I briefly met PinkPantheress at an Oscars after-party. She’s so nice — I think we were both grabbing a burger from the same person.

On her dream artist to skate to:

Mitski, I would say. A lot of her songs have been on my list for a long time, but there’s only two programs every season, so I’ve had to wait. [Just one song would be] too hard to pick.

On filming Laufey’s “Madwoman” music video:

It was a dream come true. The vibe was so good. Chilling with everyone in between scenes was really fun, and we all got dinner after. Hudson Williams was so funny, and he’s really comfortable to be around. Very, very brother-core.

There are so many different mediums for art. Figure skating is one of the ones that I do, and same with fashion and how I express myself. But music videos had not been one of them, so I wanted to explore that. I really do want to skate in a music video one day, just because skating is what I do. That is my forte.

On her personal style:

I really started experimenting when I was 16. It has evolved, but a lot of what I gravitate toward is still the same as when I was 16. I genuinely cannot put a label on it. I’ve met a few people who said my hair inspired their hair, too. I will say I’m not used to it, but I think it’s cool that people like stripes too, because I love stripes, so I’m for it. Definitely experiment and get out of your comfort zone, because you don’t know unless you try.

On her 2027 plans:

I have a lot lined up, let’s just say that. But I’m going to start dance classes, too, which I’m really excited about, because during the on-season there’s not quite enough time to get that all in. I’ve never watched Dancing With the Stars before — this is my first time watching it — and Amber did real good. She did real good. I don’t think I would [join the cast]. It’s not a never, but it’s a no.