The Californian man who free-climbed the Taipei 101 Skyscraper reveals he was paid an “embarrassing” amount from Netflix.
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Alex Honnold, 40, free-climbed the Taipei 101 Skyscraper on January 23 for a 90-minute special broadcast by Netflix, Free Solo. He spoke to The New York Times, where he touched on the relatively small amount the streaming giant paid him.
Honnold was asked if the huge spectacle was the biggest payday he’s received. And from his answer, he wasn’t so sure.
“Maybe. It’s less than my agent aspired to,” he said. Although he stressed that climbing the 11th-tallest skyscraper is something he’d happily do for nothing.
“I mean, I would do it for free. If there was no TV program and the building gave me permission to go do the thing, I would do the thing because I know I can, and it’d be amazing. I mean, just sitting by yourself on the very top of the spire is insane.”
However, with the spectacle, the arrangement changes a little. “If there wasn’t the whole spectacle around it, and I just had the opportunity to go do it by myself, I’d be fine with that. I would do that, but in this case, there is a spectacle. I’m not getting paid to climb the building.”
He summed, “I’m getting paid for the spectacle. I’m climbing the building for free.”
Alex Honnold Says He Got Paid An “Embarrassing” Amount
He was then outright asked just how much he got paid. “I’m not gonna say. It’s an embarrassing amount,” he answered. “Actually, if you put it in the context of mainstream sports, it’s an embarrassingly small amount. You know, Major League Baseball players get like $170 million contracts. Like, someone you haven’t even heard of and that nobody cares about.”
Although Honnold wouldn’t indulge us with an answer, they reported that two people with “direct knowledge of the arrangement” said he was paid “in the mid-six figures” for his climb.
Ultimately, Honnold’s concern wasn’t with what he was getting paid. He didn’t fully understand the contract in case of him bailing out, and he didn’t have any insurance. He simply climbed the building for the love of the game. Gotta respect it.