NBC Pulls Olympic Champ From Commentating Team Just Weeks Before Olympics Due To Drama With Former Partner

Together with her former partner, Guillaume Cizeron, retired French ice dancer Gabriella Papadakis is the 2022 Olympic gold medalist, 2018 Olympic silver medalist, five-time World champion, a five-time consecutive European champion, two-time Grand Prix Final champion, seven-time French national champion with ten gold medals from the Grand Prix series.

So who better to provide ice dancing color commentary for NBC's Winter Olympics coverage in February in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy?

NBC agreed and had hired Papadakis for that purpose—until her memoir, So as Not to Disappear (Pour ne pas disparaître), was published on January 15, 2026.

According to Papadakis, she lost her opportunity to build a new career because of her former partner's reaction to her book.

In an interview with sports daily L'Equipe on Friday, Papadakis shared:

"To my knowledge, in reaction to Guillaume [Cizeron] filing a formal notice, which was made public, they [NBC] considered that the perception of my neutrality was compromised and that I could not commentate on the Olympic Games."

Cizeron will be competing with his new partner, Laurence Fournier Beaudry, in the upcoming Winter Olympics.

Through his lawyers, Cizeron formally filed a notice to cease the "dissemination of defamatory statements" about him from Papadakis' book.

In a statement to Sportico, NBC said:

"We respect Gabriella’s right to tell the story of her life and career. At the same time, her new book creates a clear conflict of interest. Our responsibility is to deliver coverage that our audience can trust to be free of bias—whether actual or perceived—and we regret that is no longer possible given the circumstances."

Of her firing, Papadakis told L'Equipe:

"I'm not dealing with it very well, I've cried a lot. I was super disappointed because I was just beginning that career as a commentator."

"To lose the opportunity to start a new career is very difficult to take. I understand NBC's position but, yes, I'm experiencing a feeling of injustice."

In her book, Papadakis described a very unbalanced relationship with Cizeron, who was characterized as "controlling" and "demanding." She stated she felt "under his grip" and at times was scared to be alone with him.

Papadakis told L'Equipe:

"As long as I took a backseat role while Guillaume was the leader, everything went well."

"It's when I wanted to be an equal in this relationship that things started to become more and more difficult."

Papadakis, now 30, first began skating with Cizeron when she was just 9 and he was 10.

People had mixed reactions to the news.

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In a statement released Tuesday, Cizeron responded to Papadakis' book saying:

"In the face of the smear campaign targeting me, I want to express my incomprehension and my disagreement with the labels being attributed to me."

"These allegations arise at a particularly sensitive time...thereby raising questions about the underlying intentions behind this campaign."

"I also wish to denounce the content of the book, which contains false information attributing to me, among other things, statements I have never made and which I consider serious."

Papadakis, however, says the book's release date just before the Winter Olympics was not an attack on Cizeron.

"I can understand this perception from the outside. But the publication date was already planned before the announcement of his return [to Olympic competition]."

Papadakis and Cizeron announced their retirement from ice dancing in December of 2024.

Cizeron partnered with Laurence Fournier Beaudry in 2025 and returned to competitive ice dancing after the book's release date was set by her publishers, according to Papadakis.