What’s next for Olympic Gold Medalist Alysa Liu? Probably more PinkPantheress.
Star skater Alysa Liu joined host Andy Cohen on Watch What Happens Live on Monday (March 2) to talk about the Winter Olympics, past skating program music choices and what tunes she hopes to skate to next. With her two medals in tow, the Olympian first told Cohen about her decision to skate to Donna Summer’s “MacArthur Park.”
“I was recommended by someone to listen to that song,” Liu says. “Then I found a 16-minute suite version, and it took it to another level.”
Take it to another level, it did: Liu’s freestyle skate to Summer’s song brought her from third place in the competition to the gold in women’s individual figure skating. On top of winning with the track, Liu also helped boost it to the top of the Billboard’s Dance Digital Song Sales chart, giving Summer her fourth posthumous No. 1.
“MacArthur Park” isn’t the only track Liu’s skating helped chart: “Stateside” by PinkPantheress and Zara Larsson saw an 88% increase in streams the day after Liu used it for her closing gala performance. Meanwhile, Laufey’s “Promise” scored 1.3 million streams in the four days after Liu skated to it for her short program set.
Cohen and Liu continued the music conversation, with the skater sharing the top five songs she hopes to skate to next. The runner-ups were “Fire in My Heart” by Escape From New York, Billie Eilish‘s Billboard Hot 100 No. 12 hit “Chihiro,” Tchaikovsky’s classic “Swan Lake,” and “Star” by Mitski. Liu’s top choice was “Capable of Love,” another PinkPantheress track.
Liu then excitedly shared with Cohen that she heard from PinkPantheress after her “Stateside” performance saying, “She’s so nice.”
Liu famously returned to competitive skating this year after stepping away from the sport at 16 years old in 2022. When she decided to make her comeback, she gave her coach a list of conditions that must be met for her return. One of them was that she gets to choose her own music. It won’t be a surprise if we hear a few more PinkPantheress tracks at the 2030 Winter Olympics.