About me.
I’m Gabriella Papadakis. I started skating when I was four and spent more than two decades living on the ice: chasing medals, breaking records, existing inside the competitive system. I loved that world, and it gave me everything: an Olympic gold medal, five world titles and unforgettable memories. But it also came with parts I could no longer live with, so I walked away, convinced I didn’t belong there anymore.
A few months later, I opened a Substack and published my first essay, The Case for Same-Sex Figure Skating. It went viral. Soon after, I performed in Switzerland with my good friend Madison Hubbell, skating as a same-sex couple. I spoke out about the changes I wanted to see in the sport and realized I still had a place in skating, just not the one I’d always known.
I also realized that writing could be a powerful tool: a way to share my experiences, bring attention to what needs to change in figure skating, and offer new ways of thinking about the sport we love.
In this newsletter you’ll find essays on skating and reinvention, reflections on identity and gender, behind-the-scenes glimpses of the book I’m writing, the skating and music I’m creating, and me becoming more myself in hope that it can help you become more of yourself too.
I believe art is how we become ourselves. For me, it’s skating, writing, music. They are all ways of asking the same questions and opening the same doors: who am I becoming, and what kind of world do I want to help create?
Also, newsletters end up directly in your inbox, completely free from the whims of an algorithm.
Why subscribe? If you’re into being more free, curious about art and identity, or if you just want to follow someone stumbling through Act II of their life with honesty (and occasional humor), you might feel at home here.
With love, Gabriella x
Also, I have a newsletter in french as well. Sometimes the content will be the same, sometimes it will be different. It’s here:
