Alex Honnold Reveals “Embarrassing” Paycheck for Netflix’s Taipei 101 Free Solo Climb
The number in Alex Honnold’s bank account isn’t climbing quite as high as he’d like.
In fact, the professional rock climber revealed that his payday for scaling 1,667-foot skyscraper Taipei 101 without any safety equipment, which was broadcast live on Netflix Jan. 25 in Taiwan, was “embarrassing,” especially compared to what other professional athletes make.
“Actually, if you put it in the context of mainstream sports, it’s an embarrassingly small amount,” he told the New York Times in an interview published Jan. 23. “You know, Major League Baseball players get like $170 million contracts. Like, someone you haven’t even heard of and that nobody cares about.”
While he didn’t share his exact compensation, he did earn “mid-six figures” for climbing one of the tallest buildings in the world, according to the New York Times. That being said, Alex, 40, noted that he would have been happy to complete the death-defying feat for no money at all.
“If there was no TV program and the building gave me permission to go do the thing,” he explained, “I would do the thing because I know I can, and it’d be amazing.”