Olympian Adam Rippon engaged to boyfriend after pandemic forced them apart for a year
(Instagram/Adam Rippon)
Adam Rippon is engaged to his boyfriend after the pandemic forced the pair apart for almost a year.
Rippon shared the news in a heartfelt post on Instagram which captured the Olympic figure skater alongside his new fiancé Jussi-Pekka “JP” Kajaala.
In the post, Rippon shared how he and Kajaala “didn’t get to see each other for almost all of 2020 because of the pandemic”.
So when there was a chance for Rippon to go and see his boyfriend in Finland, he said, “I jumped at it”.
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He wrote: “While I was there [in Finland], I would tell him about five million jokes that I would want to pitch during my five-hour zoom meetings for our NBC comedy.
“And 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.
“So, in between all that and binging the entire four seasons of The Crown, we bought ourselves some rings and said that magic word. ‘Duh!’
“We got engaged.”
Rippon said he was in Finland from November of last year into January.
Kelly Rippon, the figure skater’s mother, replied to the post saying she will change her Instagram bio to “mom of seven” to include Kajaala, before congratulating the couple.
Denali, a contestant on season 13 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, also commented on the post. She wrote: “Omg congrats angels!!!”
Adam Rippon gushes over boyfriend, now fiancé, JP Kajaala.
Adam Rippon and his partner Jussi-Pekka “JP” Kajaala first started dating in 2018 after meeting on Tinder.
Rippon told People that he’s excited to marry JP “because he’s just the best”.
He added: “He’s kind, he’s funny and he’s just as beautiful on the inside as he is on the out (which is a lot).
“He’s my cheerleader, and I’m his.
“I just love him a lot.”
Rippon told People the pair proposed together, and both men got down on one knee. “We did everything together,” he said.
“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.”
The pair haven’t started wedding planning just yet. Rippon said they plan to have a courthouse wedding since it’ll be “pretty hard to get both of our families together in the same place”.
Rippon won the bronze medal at the 2018 Winter Olympics and was one of the first openly gay men to compete on Team USA. He said during an appearance on The RuPaul Show in 2019 that he knew Kajaala was the one for him.
