Shaun White is no longer “the Flying Tomato,” said Elizabeth Weil in The New York Times. Though the snowboarding prodigy has made a fortune out of his persona as the cocky, redheaded dude who won Olympic gold, he has a new image for this year’s Sochi Olympics: that of the mature, polite, hardworking businessman. Now 27, he has cut his famous locks and ditched the skateboarding clothes for sharp suits, and wants everyone to forget about the 20-something brat who frittered away his money, crashed his Lamborghini, and got arrested for drunkenly trashing a hotel room. “You know those social skills you build over time? I didn’t really have those,” he says. “I was in my 20s, so I was like, I don’t want to do this—I want to have fun. I want to buy a sports car and drive.” But then he decided to clean up his life, and is now the chief of Shaun White Enterprises, the company that oversees his clothing line, sponsorships, and business partnerships. Nowadays, he spends his time training for Sochi, working on new business deals, and even collecting art. “Maybe things aren’t perfect,” says White. “But they’re a lot better than they were before.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
4 ways to give back this holiday seasonThe Explainer If your budget is feeling squeezed, remember that money is not the only way you can be generous around the holidays
-
4 tips for hosting an ecofriendly ThanksgivingThe Week Recommends Coming together for the holidays typically produces a ton of waste, but with proper preparation, you can have an environmentally friendly gathering.
-
Jussie Smollet conviction overturned on appealSpeed Read The Illinois Supreme Court overturned the actor's conviction on charges of staging a racist and homophobic attack against himself in 2019
