Those in attendance at Tuesday evening’s taping of NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon received an Olympic-sized surprise when gold medalist Alysa Liu glided onto set.
The set-up: Fallon during his monologue expressed a need for a “gold necklace” to complement the bracelet he was wearing. Enter Liu, with both of her Olympic gold medals draped around her neck. The studio audience leapt to their feet and celebrated the champion with enthusiastic cheers and applause.
Once the crowd settled down, Liu did not so much as loan Fallon one of her gold medals; instead, she offered him “something even better”—a wig in the style of her famously striped hair.
Liu is the fourth Winter Olympics gold medalist to appear this week on The Tonight Show (aka “where champions go”). On Monday night, host Jimmy Fallon welcomed Jack Hughes and Quinn Hughes (of Team USA’s men’s hockey team) and Hilary Knight (captain of the women’s hockey team).
Liu first was a guest on Fallon’s Tonight Show back in January 2019, when she was 13 years old and had just become the youngest U.S. Women’s Figure Skating Champion (watch video).
Her second appearance came this past December, when she spoke with Fallon about coming out of retirement to train for and compete at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. Watch video:
Two months later, Liu delivered an instantly iconic free skate program, set to “MacArthur Park Suite” by Donna Summer, that led her to become the first U.S. woman figure skater to win gold since 2002.
Since then, all eyes have been on the late night space, wondering on which program the newly christened America’s Sweetheart would first turn up. (Earlier this week, the 20-year-old’s daytime destinations included Live with Kelly and Mark and NBC’s Today.)
You can watch Liu’s Tonight Show drop-by when it airs tonight at 11:35 p.m. ET, on NBC.
