Alysa Liu didn’t mind Saturday Night Live poking some fun at her on Saturday, February 28. In fact, it seems like she agrees.
The Team USA figure skater shared a clip from the show, in which host Connor Storrie mentions her.
“And as that ice skating girl with the striped hair taught us, you can still be a baddie, even if you’re a little quirked up,” the Heated Rivalry star said.
“Period,” Liu, 20, wrote over the post via her Instagram Story the next day.
Liu is fresh off winning two gold medals at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy, becoming the first American figure skater since 2006 to win a medal in figure skating.
“I was feeling calm, happy, and confident,” she said at the time, per Golden Skate. “I’ve been having fun the whole time. This experience is really cool. I got to see my siblings and my friends the past two nights — we even had a late-night dinner together. It was super fun. I’m just so happy that I could bring Oakland to Milan.”
Liu continued, “I’m glad that now there are a lot of people watching me, so I can show them everything I’ve come up with in my head and share my stories. I want to be a storyteller.”
2026 marked Liu’s second Olympic appearance and came four years after she announced her retirement in 2022 — just months after she competed at the Beijing Olympics. She said via Instagram at the time that she was “moving on with [her] life” after accomplishing her figure skating goals.
Liu added that her intense training took over her life, making it hard to enjoy. She stayed off the ice for two years before deciding to make a return.
“I’m glad everything happened,” Liu told Olympics.com in October 2024. “You know, butterfly effect. Like, I don’t think I would be here without it. So I don’t regret anything. And I’m glad… I wouldn’t change anything.”
“I’m almost glad that I had to struggle so much because I learned so much from that, you know?” she added. “And I think it definitely played a role in where I am today…It definitely helped me. I needed to go through that.”
In addition to her success on the ice, Liu’s popularity soared at the 2026 Olympics due to her unique style, including her famous smiley piercing. Liu revealed in an interview with TMJ4 News, shared on YouTube January 26 that she did it herself.
“Oh, my ‘smiley,’” she said. “I pierced it a little over two years ago now.”
“I did it myself,” she added. “I had my sister hold up my lip, and I was looking in the mirror and I had my piercing needle and then — yeah, I just put it through.”
While her piercing may contribute to that “quirked up” vibe that Storrie, 26, described, it doesn’t come highly recommended by experts.
“Oral piercings or tongue splitting may look cool, but they can be dangerous to your health,” the ADA writes on its MouthHealthy website. That’s because your mouth contains millions of bacteria, and infection and swelling often occur with mouth piercings.”
