Adam Rippon finally meets fan Reese Witherspoon on 'The Late Show'

After striking up a Twitter friendship during the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, Reese Witherspoon and Adam Rippon finally met on Wednesday night's Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

While interviewing Witherspoon for her upcoming movie A Wrinkle in Time, Colbert mentioned that Rippon was his next guest and asked if she would like to meet him, which Witherspoon excitedly said yes to. When Rippon came onstage, she told him, "This is the relationship the world has been waiting for" and complimented Rippon on how good he smelled.

For his part, "I really needed this today, meaning Reese, because before I got here today my life was in shambles," Rippon said. He explained that before he got on the show, a button popped off his button-up shirt and showed some exposed midriff. Flashing some of the exposed skin, Rippon said, "I'm embarrassed, but I'm not."

Witherspoon advised him to put a necklace over it; Rippon had arrived at the show with his bronze medal, won in the team competition at Pyeongchang, around his neck.

Colbert started off the conversation by asking Rippon when he first fell in love with Witherspoon, to which Rippon responded, "Well, I think when I watched Legally Blonde. That was it. That's when I fell in love. and you're so beautiful in person." After Witherspoon thanked him, he joked, "I'm talking to Stephen."

Witherspoon said she first got interested in Rippon when she was working out with her trainer and he asked her whether she'd seen "Adam." She started reading his tweets, and on The Late Show, recited a particularly memorable one back to Rippon. "Not that memorized it or anything ... or, like, made it my screensaver," Witherspoon said. The two then ended their simultaneous appearance by practicing how they would act if they fell down during a figure skating routine.

Rippon originally struck up an Internet repartee with Witherspoon during the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang when Witherspoon tweeted that the figure skater was "Reason #1 to Watch #WinterOlympics2018." Rippon initially responded with a satirical movie idea wherein Witherspoon tweeted at him and he "die[d] immediately"; later, he told one NBC correspondent he just wanted to make "Reese Witherspoon proud." Witherspoon responded on Twitter, "Oh @Adaripp ,you make me so proud ! Keep making us all so happy!"

When Rippon won the bronze medal in the team competition at Pyeonchang, he said on television that he owed the medal in part to Witherspoon and in part to his mom.

Recently, Rippon made headlines by declining NBC's offer to serve as a correspondent because he did not want to leave Team USA and move out of the Olympic Village. He also wore a harness tuxedo to the Academy Awards, which became a widely shared image on social media.

This article originally appeared in THR.com.

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