Alysa Liu Describes Scary Airport Encounter With Followers
Olympic figure skating champion Alysa Liu, 20, posted on Instagram Stories describing a disturbing encounter at an airport where someone chased her to her car after she returned to the United States from the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan.
Liu shared the account on Wednesday, March 4, writing bluntly about what she experienced when she landed.
“So I land at the airport, & there’s a crowd waiting at the exit with cameras & things for me to sign,” she wrote. “All up in my personal space. Someone chased me to my car bruh. Please do not do that to me.”
The incident came just days after Liu made history at the Milan Games. She won the women’s singles figure skating competition, earning the first individual gold for Team USA since 2002.
Her program in the women’s final on Feb. 19 was set to “MacArthur Park” by Donna Summer. She also won a second gold medal as part of the United States team figure skating competition earlier in the Games.
Two gold medals, a historic achievement — and within days she was publicly asking strangers not to follow her to her vehicle.
Since returning from Italy, Liu has been in New York City making the kind of media rounds that come with sudden Olympic fame.
She appeared on Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen and Today, where she met Daniel Radcliffe. She visited Simu Liu and the cast of Oh, Mary! at the Lyceum Theatre. She appeared on the cover of Teen Vogue.
Liu has been engaging with fans, doing interviews, and sharing all of it with her followers. She is clearly not someone who wants to hide from the public.
That makes the airport encounter all the more notable. The issue was not about wanting or avoiding attention. The issue is someone physically chasing her and a crowd getting in her personal space without her consent.
There is a significant difference between Liu choosing to appear on a talk show set and a stranger pursuing her at an airport exit. One involves consent. The other does not.
In an NBC Interview following her Olympic victory, Liu joked about how she might handle her sudden visibility.
When asked how she would deal with “superstardom,” she said, “I have no idea how I’m gonna deal with it. Probably wigs. I’m gonna wear some wigs when I go outside,” before grinning and adding, “Nah, I’m playing.”
It was funny at the time. Liu’s sense of humor — dry, self-aware, unbothered — is one of the reasons people connect with her. The “bruh” in her airport post wasn’t an accident. That’s how she communicates, and it’s part of what makes her feel like a peer rather than a distant celebrity.
After the airport incident, that joke about wearing wigs to avoid being recognized feels less like a throwaway punchline and more like a real concern. When a young woman starts thinking about disguising herself to move through public spaces safely, something has gone wrong.