Do we like them?

Do we like Shaun White?

Our score: 6 out of 10. A clean harm record and some real good, held back by a settled harassment lawsuit and a clumsy response to it.

Shaun White grew up in Carlsbad, California, and was riding skateboards and snowboards as a kid. He won halfpipe gold at the 2006, 2010 and 2018 Olympics, the first snowboarder to win three, and collected a pile of X Games medals along the way. He finished fourth at Beijing in 2022 and retired from competing.

The big blot is the Bad Things lawsuit. In 2016 his former band's drummer sued, and her lawsuit alleged he repeatedly sexually harassed her. It also alleged he sent her explicit images and made vulgar remarks. His side called the suit meritless and said the texts were exchanged with a friend who later used them to build it. It settled for an undisclosed sum with no wrongdoing admitted.

The handling of it at Pyeongchang in 2018 didn't help. Asked about it after his third gold, he dismissed it as “gossip”. He apologised the next morning, saying he was sorry he'd chosen the word. Critics noted the apology covered the word rather than the substance, though he also said he's a much more changed person than he used to be.

On the harm test, there's honestly nothing here. We found no anti-LGBTQ+ campaigning, no conspiracy theories and no culture-war grifting. We also found nothing on him platforming people who push harm. He's talked about climate change in a BBC interview, saying it leaves him feeling helpless and hoping people can make a difference. That's thin as activism, but it's on the right side.

He also got caught out in 2018 wearing a Halloween costume of the Simple Jack character from Tropic Thunder. The Special Olympics called it offensive. He apologised publicly, and the organisation accepted it and invited him to ride with its athletes. It's a dumb-move stain rather than a pattern, and he owned it quickly.

Nothing fresh has come up lately. His last big moment was February 2026 at the Milan Cortina Games, where he worked for NBC and did a late-night halfpipe run with nobody watching. He admitted he misses riding it so much. Some viewers rolled their eyes at his opening ceremony commentary, but that's a style gripe, not a scandal.