US Olympic figure skater Alisa Liu revealed that everyone pronounces her name incorrectly.
In a recent interview with Newsweek, the 20-year-old revealed that her name is pronounced “ah-lee-sa” and her last name is pronounced “lee-o.”
“Technically, that’s what my family calls me,” she explained. “Technically, that’s what my name says.”
The figure skater pointed out that her last name is often mistaken for “Lou” while friends and “the world” call her “Oh, Rhys, Uh.”
“I personally don’t care,” she added of the common mistake. “Because technically, ‘Leo-o’ is correct. But it can be difficult to pronounce. We don’t expect people to know how to say it.”
Liu won the gold medal in the free skating competition at the Winter Olympics, becoming the first American to win a gold medal in 24 years.
The athlete spoke to Teen Vogue last week about what she did after her impressive Olympic performance.
“After I won, I didn’t get any sleep…I went home and literally did everything I wanted to for five days,” she said.
“It was really amazing because I didn’t have any media, I didn’t have any commitments,” Liu continued. “I was able to see a lot of my friends again, relax and catch up on some sleep. I wanted to skate, so I skated twice.”
Liu also said she would “risk” her career to prioritize her loved ones.
“I choose to hang out with friends during sessions, but if that makes me a bad skater, so be it,” she told the outlet. “I don’t care.”
Liu has been dealing with intense fame since the Olympics, which reached its peak when he was chased by fans at the airport.
“So I landed at the airport, and at the exit a crowd was waiting with cameras and things to sign for me,” she wrote in a March 4 post on her Instagram Stories.
“It was all confined to my personal space. Someone followed me to my car, oh my god,” she continued, pleading, “Please don’t do that to me.”
