Good Morning LA
February 20, 2006
Transcript by Sam
Anchor 1: What do you think about your medal being on display in the figure skating Hall Of Fame?
Tara: Its kind of special...
Anchor 1: That's kind of you, I'd want to keep mine.
Tara: Yea. I can get it back whenever I want to, but its next to Sonia Henie, like all her dress and her medal, that's pretty cool.
Anchor 1: Now they have a big hole in the middle. Yours doesn't have a big uh...
Tara: Yea, mine doesn't have a hole.
Anchor 1: Its just nice and heavy.
Tara: Yea, I'm glad mine doesn't have a hole.
Anchor 2: Well yours is probably worth more.
Tara: Nooooo, its not worth more.
Anchor 3: She's not gonna sell it.
Anchor 1: How much on eBay?
Tara: Nooo.
Anchor 3: I was going to say, its always, Tara Lipinski, the youngest person ever win. Do you ever think I'm actually growing up now, 'I'm not just this little kid'?
Anchor 1: How old are you now?
Tara: I'm 23.
Anchor 2: Oh youre ready to retire. You're getting liver spots.
Tara: Uhhh!
Anchor 2: Everyone thinks of you as this little fifteen year old kid right?
Tara: Yea but, I don't know, I dont. I guess I just never really let it get to me and I was just, kind of normal and grew up.
Anchor 1: Can I embarass you right now? You are absolutely adorable.
Tara: Oh!
Anchor 3: She's even cuter now.
Anchor 2: Yea, yea..
Tara: Thank you.
Anchor 3: You're cute when you want.
Tara: [laughs] Thank you.
Anchor 2: Now, when you look back, do people say its not that long ago, but does it seem like a long ago to you that you won that gold medal?
Tara: It does and it doesn't. Sometimes it feels like my life has really changed and other days it feels like it was yesterday. The Olympics is so strange, it really does stay with you forever. When I won that night it changed my life forever.
Anchor 3: Were you really shocked? Because I look at those pictures and think 'that girl was shocked'.
Tara: I was completely shocked. Like, when I was screaming and yelling I hadn't, I was just so relieved I didn't even have a chance to think about if I had won or not. I remember sitting there and you kind of, when you look back you see my coach go 'ok its time to like, concentrate and think about the marks, you know? you have to calm down' and you see my face go (happy expression to serious face). And then I'm like (Tara makes an excited face) and then I start screaming again. It was a little embarassing (laughs).
Anchor 1: Did you think, you weren't Michelle Kwan, you weren't the one who had all the pressure going into the games?
Tara: Well this is the thing, I think people seem to forget, at the time Michelle and I were like big rivals. For three years, back and forth. I had won Worlds in '97 and then I won Nationals in '97 and then I was at Worlds the year before, and we were going back and forth. It was pressure filled for me.
Anchor 2: But the shock to people who don't follow skating is Michelle was the queen of skating...
Tara: Right.
Anchor 2: It was a shock with the general public, it wasnt such a shock within the skating community.
Tara: Right. She was older than me so at the time they felt that it was gonna be her time to win, but in the skating world we were really going neck and neck. So I was like, I can do it, but I was the underdog.
Anchor 1: And were you two friendly? Or was it not...
Tara: Yea, you know what? The media really hyped that up.
Anchor 2: So we hyped that up? Thats what happens, huh? (laughs)
Tara: (laughs) No, it wasn't you, but thats what happens, and its fine because its a sport and its entertainment and it made the Olympics exciting and its fine and on the ice we were competitive and, I am competitive so I liked that.
Anchor 1: It doesnt need to be turned into a cat fight.
Tara: No, there were no catfights. No. (laughs)
Anchor 2: Are you still in touch with her? I mean really Michelle Kwan, the way she handeled herself in public was so admerible as she goes through all these things. Do you still talk to her?
Tara: No, I don't like, personally talk to her through this, no.
Anchor 1: But you must have felt for her this time around.
Tara: You know its tough. I can say it is really tough. The Olympics is so special, and I can just, I feel for her, its hard.
Anchor 2: Yea you know, but shes [inaudible], if things work out for her...
Tara: Yea and its all ment to be, and everything happens for a reason and she's handeling herself with grace and dignity and...
Anchor 2: As she always deos. Now, about you. You're 23, you turned pro how many years ago?
Tara: I turned pro right after the Olympics.
Anchor 2: So you've been a pro for 7, 8 years?
Tara: Yeaaa.
Anchor: You're 23! (laughs)
Tara: Yea (laughs). A lot of people gave me flack for that, but I really felt like that I had won Worlds, I had won Nationals, I won Olympics...
Anchor 3: It wasnt gonna get any better.
Tara: I would have stayed in if I didn't, I really would of, I would of stayed in 'till I did it.
Anchor 3: Now have you done some dabbling into acting though too or...
Tara: Right after that, I had a contract with a network and I started a little bit, never thinking that I would do it and I loved it.
Anchor 2: So are you doing that now?
Tara: Yea!
Anchor 2: Is this why you live in out here? So you can have that kind of career?
Tara: Yes! I actually did a reoccuring role that year on a soap and that did it. I was like, I love it and came out, did 7th Heaven, and last year did Still Standing, and I just finished doing Malcom In The Middle so that airs in April.
Anchor 2: Oh good for you. Now, Emily Hughes is sitting home in Long Island and she find out that she's going to the Olympics. She goes there and shes about, a little older than you were when you won. What advice would you give to her, if she asked you for advice?
Tara: Just to have fun. Seriously, block everything out...
Anchor 1: How do you do that?
Tara: You can.
Tara: You can. LIke, when I went there...
Anchor 1: I feel like you did.
Tara: I did. I went to the village, I didn't have anyone there. I was like, 'I'm going, I'm having fun'.
Anchor 1: You didn't have an entourage?
Tara: No. No (laughs). My parents were in a hotel, and my coaches left me alone. I did my own thing, and went to all the events and hung out in the cafeteria with like, Wayne Gretsky and I was like, way cool, and I went to my practices and focused when it was time to focus but then had fun. And when it comes time to compete, you're not as nervous, because you're not in your room everyday going 'oh my god, this is the Olympics'.
Anchor 2: You were young enough just to take it all in. I wonder if you were just a little older, if you had been more concerned that you were.
Tara: Yes and no. I feel like, I was young but at the same time I look back and I was very mature for my age and I remember, I was so nervous. I remember standing on the ice, and my legs were shaking...
Anchor 1: Before you started?...
Tara: And I said to myself, 'I should really get off now, because I remember thinking'...
(all anchors laugh)
Tara: ... I mean, I'm usualy nervous, like you get that nauseous feeling and think 'this is really not good' (laughs)
Anchor 1: I'm gonna throw up on the ice!
Tara: Then, when my legs were shaking I go 'Nah'. I remeber saying, 'you know what? I shouldn't do it'. (laughs)
Anchor 1: And then the music started...
Tara: And then I was like 'stop, fix it'.
Anchor 2: Do you think, right now.. we talked about Emily Hughes, we talked about Sasha Cohen. Kimmie Miesner, the other one who is also she's 16 or whatever. Does she catch a break because the attention is focused to the left of her and to the right of her on the American team?
Tara: I don't know. I mean, you know what? Everyones probably trying to figure it out, whats better for each one, but its gonna be what its gonna be. You know? I had the focus on me, Sarah Hughes didn't have the focus on her cause she just came out of no where...
Anchor 2: And Michelle always had the focus on her.
Tara: Right, so you know what? You never know. Thats why its exciting, so...
Anchor 1: Did you watch the ice dancing last night?
Tara: I missed it last night. I watched the first event...
Anchor 1: Wheres the New York Times?
Tara: But I saw the....
Anchor 1: What's going on? Oh my gosh, nobody ever falls in ice dancing.
Tara: I know.
Anchor 1: Everybody fell.
Tara: That's not good.
Anchor 3: What about Jilian? Have you seen Jilian?
Tara: (laughs) That's great. I know! I'm so excited for her! She's really good.
Anchor 2: She's good isn't she?
Tara: She's so cute.
Anchor 2: Yea. Do you think if she hadn't stopped, she skated when she was like 12?
Tara: She should have kept doing it. She would have been good. What, like, why did she stop?
Anchor 3: Probably because she has a great career now, that's why.
Anchor 1: Do you think she discovered boys, is that it?
Tara: Awww look at her.
Anchor 2: I think boys discovered her, that was the problem. Well, there's no Skating With Celebrities tonight but next...
Tara: (laughs) No, she's really good. (claps)
Anchor 2: She is really good. Well, anyway... (to Anchor 3) You know what? You told me that she was going to be a wonderful interviewer and I would... and you are.
Tara: Awwww. Thank you.
Anchor 2: Its a pleasure to have you here, good luck in your acting career.
Tara: Thank you.
Anchor 2: Come back and see us.
Tara: I will. Thank you very much
Anchor 2: Alright.
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