The wife of Alex Honnold no doubt felt a lot of emotions watching her husband climb the world’s 11th-tallest skyscraper, but you might not have expected “joyful” to be one of them.
But that’s exactly how Sanni McCandless felt watching Honnold scale Taiwan’s 1,667-foot Tapei101 at the same time as millions of Netflix subscribers globally. Honnold, 40, is a free climber, meaning he doesn’t use ropes and relies on his physical strength alone to scale buildings.
He is widely regarded as one of the greatest rock climbers in the world. With more than 30 years of experience, he rose to global prominence in 2017 after becoming the first person to free solo a full route up El Capitan in Yosemite National Park — a feat later chronicled in the Oscar-winning 2018 documentary Free Solo.
Many were left intrigued by what McCandless’s internal thoughts were while her husband – and father of her two young children – defied death with the climbing stunt in Taiwan, and she addressed this in a press conference once Honnold had safely returned to land.
“I was telling someone that when you really love someone, and you think that they might be stressed, you say, ‘I wish I could take their place, I wish I could take their stress away.’”
But in this case, she could sum up her feelings in five words: “Thank God I’m not him!”
McCandless, 33, continued: “I knew the second he left the ground, it would all just, not fade away, but kind of get quieter, be more of an internal experience, and then just be joyful.”
She said she “was really happy once it just started” and that “he got to do what he wanted to do”.
Honnold’s desire to free climb has come under fire from some quarters, who believe it’s insensitive to his wife and their children.
McCandless, who married Honnold in 2020, said there are “moments” where she feels concerned, but said that their partnership is built on the discussion surrounding his free-climbing decisions.
“Everybody kind of speaks their mind, you say your piece, and then you kind of see what decision is made. You try to make decisions as a team, but you also have to respect the art behind it and the passion behind it,” she said.
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McCandless said she didn’t resist him climbing Tapei 101, but also didn’t think too much about the fact that he was going to do it.
“This project came together in a very cool way, and once Alex made that decision, I remember not being in resistance to it, but just kind of not having it in my mind. And then two months ago, being like, ‘Oh, this is coming up, this is happening.’ I had seen Alex training, and I had seen him preparing, but then he really kind of locked in.”
McCandless added: “So, I felt that in my heart, of we’re like in, full support mode, whatever happens happens. I’m just here for you. I’m here to problem-solve, support, be optimistic, be positive, make sure everything’s in line. And Alex does that for me in my projects and in my life and my work. That’s what makes us a good team, I think.”
Honnold has said that, while he would have climbed the skyscraper for free, Netflix paid him “an embarrassing amount” of money to do so as part of a special for the streaming service.
He did not disclose his fee, but according to The New York Times, two people with direct knowledge of the deal said the climber was being paid in the mid-six figures.
Honnold took one hour, 31 minutes and 43 seconds to complete the hair-raising stunt on Saturday evening.
The event ran on a 10-second delay, allowing Netflix to cut the feed if Honnold were to fall.
