Alexei Yagudin
In 2020, Rippon made a donation to the Okra Project, a charity aimed at helping underprivileged black transgender people. Russian skater Alexei Yagudin reacted to the donation with an Instagram post calling Rippon and people like him "mistakes of nature" and wishing them to die. Yagudin later deleted the post. Rippon criticized Yagudin for the comments and made another $1,000 donation, this time in Yagudin's name, to the same organization.