Kenworthy was born in Chelmsford, Essex, to an English mother, Heather "Pip" Tyler, and an American father, Peter Kenworthy. He has two older brothers, Hugh and Nick Kenworthy. Kenworthy's father has been the executive director of the Mountainfilm film festival in Telluride since 2006. He is a former banker from Philadelphia, who worked in London for several years. Kenworthy's mother is originally from Bristol, England. She was born into a large family, with eight siblings. After moving to London in the early 1970s, she began working backstage in costumes, at the Kings Head Theatre Club. She also ran a vintage booth at the Camden Lock Market. She emigrated with her then husband, Peter, and her sons, including then two-year-old Gus, to Telluride, in 1993. Kenworthy graduated from Telluride High School in June 2010. He could have graduated in 2009, but decided instead to take a year off to ski.
Career
Kenworthy won AFP World Championships overall titles in 2011, 2012, and 2013. In 2014, he placed second at the Olympics in Sochi, Russia and won his first medal, a bronze, at the X Games in Tignes, France in the slopestyle event. He won the World Cup Men's Halfpipe in Park City, Utah, in 2015 and again in 2016 in Mammoth, California, and finished second in 2017. He finished third in the Men's Slopestyle during the 2017 World Cup in Silvaplana, Switzerland. In 2019, Kenworthy guest starred on RuPaul's Drag Race, All Stars 4, Episode 3, "Snatch Game of Love", as one of the available bachelors. Kenworthy joined the main cast in the season of FX's anthology series American Horror Story as Chet Clancy. In December 2019, Kenworthy announced he would compete for his birth nation Great Britain. In February 2020, Kenworthy won his first Gold Medal as a Great Britain Skier.
Personal life
In October 2015, Kenworthy publicly came out as gay in an interview with ESPN. He said in a later interview with Attitude magazine that he picked to come out in ESPN because "I wanted to do it in my words and once and for all – and hopefully help kids that are in the same position I was." Rolling Stone noted the "freestyle medalist is the first action-sports star to come out." He was in a relationship with Robin Macdonald who was also involved in the ski industry, working in film and photography. The couple gained international media attention as a result of Macdonald, texting him a photo of five stray dogs—four puppies and their mother—during their stay in Sochi, at the 2014 Winter Olympics. Kenworthy stayed behind for more than a month to save the family of dogs, and others, while he fought to bring them back home. Their adoption of these dogs helped bring further attention to the problematic rise of the stray dog population in Sochi, which grew significantly during the Olympics. The two eventually broke up after a five-year relationship. From November 2015 to July 2019 he was in a relationship with American theatre and film actor and reality television personality Matthew Wilkas. At the 2018 Winter Olympics, in Pyeongchang, South Korea, Wilkas kissed Kenworthy before his qualifying run in the men's slopestyle; the kiss was broadcast on live television and was lauded as being a significant moment in visibility of LGBT athletes. In 2017, Kenworthy was a cast member on the MTV series , which featured former competitors as well as professional athletes. In 2018, he was chosen by Fierté Montréal as one of the six grand marshals for the Pride Parade. Kenworthy announced his participation in AIDS/LifeCycle in 2019, pledging to raise $1 million to fight HIV/AIDS and joined approximately 2,000 other cyclists on a 7-day, 545 mile cycling trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Kenworthy raised a total of just under $250,000.
