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Colin Grafton: ‘I get offered shocking amounts for TikTok videos’
Fame & Fortune: Dancing on Ice star on investing and figure skating with The Vivienne
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Colin Grafton, 31, is a figure skater who finished his first series of ITV’s Dancing on Ice earlier this year. He partnered with The Vivienne from Ru Paul’s Drag Race and the pair reached the final, finishing third.
In competitive skating, he and his partner Kylie Duarte won bronze at the 2012 Junior US Championships and finished in the top 10 at the Junior Worlds later that year.
He has performed in shows around the world, including Slumdog Millionaire and The Phantom of the Opera.
Grafton was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and currently splits his time between Mexico City and Boston, US, but plans to move to Britain later this year.
How did your childhood influence your attitude to money?
I fell in love with skating at such a young age; I was seven years old, so I was so focused on my success and just trying to push forward.
I was really fortunate that money was never really on my mind. But I know it definitely was on the mind of my family, as they supported me. Skating is a very, very expensive sport.
My dad works in insurance and my mum is a nurse – all the women in my family have been – and it was a huge sacrifice for them.
People don’t realise how many expenses come with [ice skating], you can’t just show up and practice. There’s skating equipment, travel expenses, ice time, the coaches, the costumes.
I don’t even want to know how much they would have spent, but I think it must have been at least $15,000 (£12,000) a year.
What was your first job?
It probably would have been the first time I won prize money. At the Junior Worlds we came in the top 10 and that was really exciting. There were also some guest appearances at local clubs that we would get paid for as the special guests.
When you’re competing you are considered as an amateur, even if you go to the Worlds or the Olympics, so my first time really getting paid for what I did was after I retired and started skating in professional shows.
I can’t remember how much I got paid for my first show, but it would have been on the lower end of the spectrum. I was just so over the moon that I was doing something I loved and getting to travel, and just reaping the benefits of all the hard work over the years.
Some of the first shows I ever did were in Mexico and I think it would have been about $1,000 a week as a principal performer.
Has there been a time where you’ve worried about how to pay the bills?
There’s such a transition for athletes. When you’re competing at an elite level it is all consuming – you eat, sleep and breathe skating, it’s your whole life. It almost becomes your identity.
And so, when competition is over, everybody sort of goes through this, like, crisis of thinking what’s actually my purpose.
I was considering ng back to school, but then I started doing shows and it felt like an incredible opportunity. It didn’t seem like work. But it was like starting again at the bottom with no contacts.
At the beginning, there were times where I had work lined up from January to February. I thought: “Okay, here’s March through June and I have no work lined up, what am I going to do here?”.
Thankfully, I’ve been very, very fortunate and blessed in the last 10 years.
How did you get the job on Dancing on Ice?
When I first started out I worked with two coaches in Boston who were on the first couple of seasons of Dancing on Ice. I looked at them and it was like: “Wow, they did a cool TV show in London.” I never thought skating could open up these cool opportunities. So it had always been in the back of my mind.
I’d just finished a big European tour and I thought maybe I should send a few emails and see what happens. I’ve been doing professional skating for a long time now and it’s quite a small world.
I ended up getting in touch with one of the producers, and went through a lot of different audition processes, and one thing led to another and I was at the right place at the right time.
Has Dancing on Ice changed your profile?
I got to dance with The Vivienne and we made some history together.
And then, you know, we made it to the finals and the top three, and it was fantastic. To be honest, we were just so laser-focused that was the first time I really lifted up my head, and it was a pretty surreal experience.
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There was suddenly a lot more attention that I wasn’t used to. It was quite overwhelming. We had touched a lot of people, which was really nice to hear – and with that comes different opportunities. It’s opened up doors for me.
Was the show well paid?
I don’t want to say how much it paid, but it definitely does pay well, and there’s also so much more that comes with doing it. It has made the big picture better.
Do you have an agent?
I do now, but I didn’t when I was trying to get on Dancing on Ice. I’ve been my own agent for pretty much my whole career up until the last year or so.
Have you ever been paid silly money for a job?
I get offered money to do things on social media, like use a song in a video, and it shocks me every time.
Sometimes I feel guilty because people are hustling and hustling, and I have to remind myself that I’ve worked so many hours to get here, but it blows my mind.
TikTok is probably the most lucrative app at the moment. Sometimes it can be £1,000 plus to use a sound in a video or something.
Have you learned any financial lessons?
When I was 21 I joined my first cruise ship, and that was the first time I was like: “Wow, I’m making really good money.” You have no expenses because everything is paid for, so it’s just going into your bank account.
I was so naive and had no clue how to spend it. I was just buying extravagant gifts for all my friends and family, and taking these really expensive holidays. There was a wake-up call after that, I learned a lot from it.
Do you invest in stocks?
I do. I like to do my research in my downtime. I think it’s kind of fun, and it’s a hobby.
Obviously, I don’t throw a tonne of money into something, and they always say the best portfolio is the most diversified, right?
If you can invest in something in its initial stages, before it is going to be big, that’s obviously going to be the most lucrative, so I see what’s trending. I invested in Tesla before it went really high. I at least doubled my money, if not more.
Do you own property?
I don’t any more. My residence has changed so much in the last 10 years, so I’ve decided to wait until I’m going to be somewhere a little bit more permanently – potentially the UK.
I have money saved, so I could buy somewhere if I needed to. I could rent it out, but there’s a lot that comes with that and I want to be sure about it. I’ve been renting a beautiful apartment in Mexico City for the past two years.
Are you a saver or a spender?
Initially, I was 100pc a spender. I’m progressively getting better each year at becoming a saver – but it’s hard.
What are your financial plans over the next five to 10 years?
I’ve been waiting to pull the trigger on property. So that’s definitely a goal, a milestone. And then I want to just continue learning about how the market works.
I think financial freedom is what everybody aims for. I do seminars and workshops to learn about different streams of passive income. I mean, that’s everybody’s dream, right?
Do you think money makes you happy?
I don’t. I’m not naive in the fact that money is essential to life. We live in a world where we need money to survive.
But if I look back at all the things that have made me happy in the last 10 years, they have to do with putting in hard work and having an accomplishment met or challenging yourself to something you didn’t think you could do.
They were things like landing a lead role [in a show] or making it to the finals of Dancing On Ice – those things didn’t revolve around money.
I do think it’s important to set financial goals for yourself and there can be happiness in those sorts of things, but I don’t think happiness can be achieved through just money.
There will be a new series of Dancing on Ice in January 2024