Adam Rippon Announces Engagement to Boyfriend
Olympic figure skater Adam Rippon recently announced he is engaged to his longtime boyfriend Jussi-Pekka Kajaala.
While many of those in relationships have been stuck spending an increasing amount of time with their partners, Rippon explains that he and Kajaala weren’t able to see each other for most of 2020. It wasn’t until November that they got to meet up, and they spent two months in Finland together.
“When there was finally a chance for me to go and see him in Finland, I jumped at it.” Rippon says in an Instagram post announcing the engagement. In the same post he describes the trip.
“He would drive me into the Finnish forest where I would attempt to try and ‘help’ him shovel snow so he could keep working on the cottage he’s building. In between all that and binging 4 seasons of The Crown, we bought ourselves some rings and said the magic word.”
The couple has been dating since matching on a dating app in 2017 while Rippon was competing in Finland. They described the night of their engagement as casual, the pair was staying in a hotel in Helsinki. In a statement to People Magazine, Rippon talks about the engagement process.
“We did everything together. We bought the rings together and picked them up at the same time. I really wanted us to have rings from Finland. I thought it would be fun to have a little piece of Finland with us all the time as JP is getting ready to move to Los Angeles hopefully by the end of the year.”
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Rippon, 31, won the US men’s figure skating title in 2016, and helped lead the U.S to a bronze medal in the 2018 Winter Olympics. His self-deprecating humor and cheerful attitude have helped him rocket to a celebrity status. More recently, he won Season 26 of Dancing with the Stars.
Keeping busy after retiring from professional figure skating, Rippon is reportedly working on a figure skating themed sitcom for NBC.
Image Courtesy of Adam Rippon
