Renowned mountaineer Alex Honnold made history this weekend by climbing the 1,667-foot Taipei 101 skyscraper, completing the highest solo free ascent of an urban structure in history. However, according to a recent report in the New York Times, Mr. Honnold only received a mid-six-figure salary for the Netflix “Skyscraper Live” event.
“It’s less than what my agent wanted,” Honnold said of his salary. “In fact, in the context of mainstream sports, that’s an embarrassingly small amount. You know, players in Major League Baseball get contracts worth around $170 million. It’s the same as players you’ve never heard of and nobody cares about.”
Of course, part of the reason Honnold didn’t ask for a higher salary may lie in something else he told the newspaper. “I mean, I’ll do it for free. If there’s no TV show and the building gives me permission to do that thing, I’ll do it because I know I can, and it’ll be great…I’m not getting paid to climb the building. I’m getting paid for the spectacle. I’m climbing the building for free.”
Variety has reached out to Netflix and “Skyscraper Live” producer Plimsoll Prods. We asked Honnold to explain his pay for the special and how he got there.
In a chat with Variety shortly after the summit, Honnold said he was initially a little nervous about the ambient noise of “Skyscraper Live” (including thousands of people watching him in the crowd, which was a first for him), but eventually came to terms with it.
“In the last few days, my perspective has started to change a little bit,” he says. “I went from feeling like, ‘This feels kind of intense,’ and being nervous or whatever, to actually feeling really excited and motivated. It felt like there was a shift in perspective to embrace this whole spectacle aspect. It was like, if I just waved to everyone on the inside and had a good time as I passed, it would make the whole thing more enjoyable. One of the main challenges of climbing. One is pacing. If you have to go really fast, it’s tiring, but if you take your time, wave to people, enjoy the experience, enjoy the scenery, everything becomes less scary and you say, “Let’s just embrace this experience and have fun and everything will be easier.”
Honnold said his life has changed dramatically since he rose to fame thanks to the Oscar-winning documentary “Free Solo.” And that notoriety allowed him to turn mountaineering into a serious career.
“I think I’ve basically structured my life around finding a way to make a living rock climbing,” he told Variety. “I love rock climbing. How can I make a living rock climbing as much as possible while also supporting my family? It’s miraculously working out. I’m able to climb full time and support my family. It’s so perfect. I couldn’t ask for more. This whole project is a part of it. I’m proud to climb something so moving. I couldn’t ask for more.”
Honnold successfully climbed Taipei 101 in 1 hour and 31 minutes. The Skyscraper Live climb, which began just after 8 p.m. ET (9 a.m. Sunday Taipei time), was pretty much a piece of cake for Honnold, but there were a few hiccups. Most of the time, he seemed to lose audio communication with his team at some point, and most importantly, his in-ear music soundtrack. (Fortunately, he eventually got it back.)
