A Month After Sally Field Tried To Play Matchmaker For Her Son, He Finally Met Up With Adam Rippon

While speaking with Skating magazine in 2015, the athlete came clean about his sexuality. “Being gay is not something that defines me,” he told reporters. “What defines me is what my mom always taught me: to treat everyone with respect, to always be a hard worker and to be kind. Those are the things that define me.”

Never afraid to be himself or speak his mind, Rippon would use his public platform to bring attention to important issues. Most notably, he criticized the choice of Mike Pence to head the 2018 Olympic delegation due to the vice president’s support of conversion therapy. “I spoke out… because right now I have a voice,” he explained to ABC News, “and I think it’s really important for me to use it.”

Despite his disapproval of Pence’s involvement, Rippon was welcomed into the U.S. Olympic team. And thanks to his electrifying performance in South Korea this year, he made history once again. By bringing home the bronze, the skater became the first openly gay man to win a medal for the U.S. at the Winter Olympics.

Needless to say, the star’s newfound exposure led to increased public interest. In particular, he struck up a friendship with Academy Award-winner Reese Witherspoon after the latter tweeted in praise of his Olympic success. “This is the relationship the world has been waiting for,” she joked on The Late Show in March.

But Witherspoon wasn’t the only Oscar recipient to take an interest in the Olympian. Indeed, Sally Field – best known for roles in the likes of Forrest Gump – had been watching his performance with great interest. And so had her son Sam Greisman, who had become taken with more than just Rippon’s flair on the ice.

Throughout the games, Field and Greisman regularly texted each other about each day’s activities. And it was during such messages that Greisman – a writer and director – revealed that he had a crush on the sporting superstar. In response, Field replied with the kind of advice only a mother could give.

Following up his son’s revelation, Field told him, “Sam… he’s insanely pretty. Find a way…” Naturally, her response warmed Greisman’s heart and the filmmaker took to Twitter to share his mom’s wisdom. “Just some really helpful advice from my mom on how to deal with my Olympic crush,” he wrote alongside a screenshot of their February conversation.

This wasn’t the first time Greisman had commented on his “Olympic prince.” The previous day, the writer tweeted that “an openly, ‘non-passing’, sassy, beautiful gay 20-something daring America not to love him and becoming the sweetheart of the Olympic Games is very moving to me.” Yet it was the former tweet that got Rippon’s attention.

However, it wouldn’t do so without a little help from Mama Field. Like any good Twitter user, the Norma Rae star decided to retweet her son’s status to her 66,500 followers. But Field decided to go a little further and made the bold step of tagging her hoped-for son-in-law in the message as well.

Of course, no child can help but be embarrassed by matchmaking parents and Greisman was no exception. In response to his mom’s retweet, the reluctant Romeo simply replied, “Yikes.” Moreover, a friend of Rippon alleged to Page Six that Greisman had messaged the Olympian to apologize.

Although he didn’t respond to the message directly, Rippon was charmed by Field’s assertiveness. After being informed of her tweet by the staff of Buzzfeed, the skater cried, “Sally! She bold!” Furthermore, he didn’t rule out a face-to-face with her son. “Sam, your mom… I admire her. And I’m sure one day we’re going to meet.”

But since Field’s attempt to set the pair up, things have been pretty quiet on the Rippon-Greisman front. While appearing on The View earlier in March, the athlete admitted that he had had no time to arrange a date. “I’ve been so busy after the Olympics,” he explained.

During the next month, followers resigned themselves to the fact that this perfect pairing may never happen. However, there soon came a flicker of hope. On March 10, Rippon took a break from his schedule to attend a Human Rights Campaign dinner in Los Angeles. By chance, Greisman was in attendance as well.

Alongside the caption “Thanks, mom,” Greisman tweeted a picture of the pair’s first meeting at the L.A. gala. And suffice to say, the reaction was ecstatic. With 3,000 retweets and almost 40,000 likes, the picture threw Greisman’s followers into frenzy. “OMG it happened,” replied one follower, JOGURT.

Alas, it seems that Greisman hasn’t quite inherited his mother’s brazen confidence, however. In fact – while appearing on The Scott McGlynn Show – the filmmaker admitted that he had almost lost his head. “I was very shy and a little embarrassed, but he’s a very cool nice guy,” he gushed.

And while their meeting may have set Twitter alight, it’s unlikely we’ll hear more from the pair in the future. “Adam’s very busy,” he continued on the podcast, “he hasn’t got time to be dating or doing anything like that. He’s conquering the world right now.”

Certainly, Greisman isn’t wrong. Currently touring with Stars on Ice, Rippon is also in talks to appear on Dancing with the Stars. And while we’ll be seeing much more of the athlete in the future, we’re sad that we probably won’t be seeing him and Greisman together again. But just as long as Sally Field’s still looking out for her son, we’ll always have hope.