Alex Honnold has described the fee he received for his live Netflix climb of Taipei 101 as an “embarrassing amount”, admitting he would have done it for free. The 39-year-old free-solo climber scaled the 101-storey, 1,667ft skyscraper in Taiwan’s capital without ropes or safety gear on Saturday evening, completing the stunt in one hour, 31 minutes and 43 seconds.
Speaking to The New York Times before the event, Honnold said the payment was “less than my agent aspired to” but declined to reveal the exact figure. “It’s an embarrassing amount,” he said. “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 $170m contracts. Like, someone you haven’t even heard of and that nobody cares about.”
When the interviewer suggested $10m, Honnold quickly dismissed it. “No!” he said. “So in that case, yeah — an embarrassingly small amount.” According to The New York Times, two sources with direct knowledge of the deal said the climber was paid in the mid-six figures.
Honnold emphasised that he was not paid for the climb itself but for the spectacle. “I’m not getting paid to climb the building. I’m getting paid for the spectacle. I’m climbing the building for free,” he said. He added that if he had been given permission to climb it alone, he would have done so without hesitation. “Just sitting by yourself on the very top of the spire is insane.”
The Netflix special, titled Skyscraper Live, was originally scheduled for Friday but was postponed due to wet weather in Taipei. Honnold, who rose to fame after free-soloing El Capitan in 2017, said he hopes the climb inspires others to “pursue their own challenges, their own goals.”
