Team GB Skier And British-American Olympian Gus Kenworthy Reveals He Received Death Threats Following Viral Anti-ICE Post

The first thing Gus Kenworthy noticed wasn't the volume of messages. It was the language.

Threats. Slurs. Strangers hoping out loud that he would 'blow my knee or break my neck' on live television at the Winter Olympics.

All of it triggered by a single image: the British-American freestyle skier appearing to urinate the words 'fuck ICE' into the snow.

In a sport where controversy usually means a judging row or a disputed trick, Kenworthy has stumbled into something far darker — the toxic intersection of politics, social media and Olympic celebrity.

Gus Kenworthy And The Backlash To His Anti-ICE Stand

Kenworthy, 34, will compete for Team GB in Livigno next week, his second Games in British colours after switching allegiance from the United States in 2019. He won silver for Team USA in ski slopestyle at the 2014 Winter Olympics, and has lived in America for most of his life. That dual identity now sits at the heart of a storm he clearly knew might come, but perhaps not with this intensity.

Last week, an Instagram story apparently showed Kenworthy writing 'fuck ICE' in the snow with urine — a crude, unambiguous swipe at the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, whose tactics have long been condemned by rights groups. The clip, predictably, went viral.

The reaction was split. Many praised him; others decided that an athlete criticising a powerful US agency was tantamount to treachery. And some went further still.

In a fresh Instagram video posted on Sunday night, Kenworthy revealed the scale and tone of the backlash.

'People telling me to kill myself, threatening me, wishing they'll get to see me blow my knee or break my neck during my event, calling me slurs ... it's insane,' he said.

It's hard to overstate how chilling that sounds coming from one of the most recognisable faces in winter sports — and one of Team GB's most high-profile Olympians. These are not grumpy comments under a news story; they are direct, targeted messages to a named athlete days before he hurls himself down an Olympic course.

Behind the scenes, officials are taking it seriously. Although Kenworthy is not yet in Livigno, the British Olympic Association is understood to have already put support services in place for him, including help with monitoring and dealing with threats and abuse on social media. In other words, he will not be left to sift through the bile alone.

Team GB Skier's Criticism Of ICE Goes Beyond A Snow Scribble

Kenworthy's latest video doesn't retreat from the controversy — it doubles down. The skier is blunt about what he thinks of ICE.

'I do not support ICE,' he said. 'And I think it's absolutely evil and awful and terrifying. There have been US citizens that have been murdered in the street, executed in the street. And the officers are essentially acting with impunity because their identities are covered. There's no accountability. It's really scary.'

That is the sort of language usually heard from activists, not Olympic medallists who are supposed to smile, compete, and advertise energy drinks. Yet Kenworthy has never been especially interested in playing the obedient poster boy. As one of the first openly gay action-sports stars, he has grown used to pushing against the grain of who gets to speak and about what.

There is also, running through his comments, an attempt to reclaim a version of American patriotism that doesn't sound like a campaign rally.

'I think sometimes people forget that you can love the US and be proud to be an American – I am – and still think they can be better and just because you love the US doesn't mean you stand with this administration,' he said.

That line matters. It is a quiet rebuke to those who treat any public criticism of US institutions as disloyalty — a familiar drumbeat in a political climate where nuance is usually the first casualty.

Kenworthy is not alone, either. He used his video to praise fellow Americans Hunter Hess and Mikaela Shiffrin for speaking out against the Trump administration, calling their stance 'inspiring' and 'important.

'Maybe this video is just going to invite more hate and vitriol,' he admitted, with a candour that cuts against the polished blandness of most athlete statements. 'But I think it's important to say what we feel and stand up for what we believe in and stand up to injustice.'

What makes this whole episode so striking is not that an Olympian has an opinion about ICE — thousands do, quietly — but that he is willing to name it, curse it and absorb the rage that follows. At a time when athletes are eternally told to "stick to sport", Kenworthy is very deliberately refusing.

There is a cost to that refusal. The death threats and violent fantasies landing in his inbox are proof. Yet there is also a principle at stake that goes beyond one skier, one post, one Games: the basic idea that public figures, even those wearing national colours, are allowed to say when they think their country has got something badly wrong.

Whether people agree with Kenworthy or not is almost beside the point. The ugliness of the response says more about the culture he is railing against than the four crude letters he scrawled in the snow.