It’s a slippery slope.
Olympic skier Mikaela Shiffrin dropped the F-bomb live on Thursday during an interview on the “Today” show from Milan, Italy.
The Olympic skier, who won gold in the women’s slalom on Wednesday, said she has been on a “spiritual journey” since the sudden death of her father Jeff in 2020.
She then accidentally says the F-word before making a joke. “Oh, no!” and then he quickly covered his mouth with his hand and said, “Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”
“Today” hosts Carson Daly, Hoda Kotb and Craig Melvin were unfazed by the moment, with Kotb telling the athlete, “I got you!”
“I will pay the fine,” she said of the FCC broadcast regulations.
Melvin added, “We know what you mean. We know what you mean. You’re wearing gold! It’s okay. It’s okay,” before referring to Shiffrin. “She’s just like us!”
“Oh my god, that’s really bad,” the Olympian mused.
During the broadcast, Shiffrin, 30, said that on the night she won the gold medal, her teammates encouraged her to drink an espresso martini.
“People kept handing me espresso martinis because I said it was my destiny to drink espresso martinis last night,” she said. “So, people kept bringing it to me. But I also said, ‘Maybe that’s part of the reason for the name-calling, and I’m sorry.’ But no, they just kept passing it to me. They were like, ‘But keep your pace. Next time, keep your pace.'”
“If I could ever love you more than ever, today is the day!” Kotb told the skier.
Meanwhile, Daly reflected a bit on Shiffrin’s gaffe after signing the deal.
The anchor, who lost her father and mother in 2017, explained, “It’s not a boilerplate answer. You know, she’s talking about her father. She was touched by that moment. That’s what happens.”
Al Roker teased, “I always knew it would be me.”
Shiffrin’s father, Jeff, died suddenly in 2020 at the age of 65 from a head injury.
“He was doing something on the roof and somehow fell and hit his head,” his wife Irene said in an Adidas video at the time. “Michaela lay with her head on his chest for nine hours. Eventually we had to withdraw support and Michaela heard his heart stop beating. It’s devastating.”
She added, “We lost our rock, the person we all loved the most.”
Shiffrin won gold at the Milan-Cortina Games, eight years after her last medal.
She became the first American skier to win three gold medals at the Olympics. Shiffrin won her first medal in the same event at the 2014 Sochi Games and won gold in the giant slalom at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games.
Shiffrin wrote a heartfelt message about her win on Instagram.
“I won! I got there in the face of fear and adrenaline and the possibility of criticism and backlash from people who knew nothing and didn’t want to understand. I stood at the starting gate, looked out at the mountains and the course ahead, and my heartbeat almost fell out of my butt. Yet, as the countdown began, I pushed. I pushed to chase, I pushed to get. I pushed to be courageous and to dream. I pushed to believe.”
Shiffrin added, “I questioned my toughness and my tenacity. I questioned everything. And I left those doubts behind and stepped into the arena anyway.”
“I won. I won. This is the lottery and I won,” she concluded. “Oh, I got a medal too.”
