Minions Olympic skate routine hangs in the balance

Tomàs-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté tried out a version of his Minions routine in 2024. He has since toned down the costume, ditching the goggles and yellow hat. (Daniel Mihailescu/AFP/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

Minions may take Milan after all.

After a last-minute crisis over music-licensing issues, the Spanish figure skater Tomàs-Llorenç Guarino Sabaté might be able to perform a routine inspired by the animated, gibberish-speaking Minions at the Winter Olympics, his coach Edoardo De Bernardis said. But he still faces a few more copyright hurdles before he can safely skate in his Minions overalls.

Sabaté has performed the Minions program throughout the 2025-2026 figure skating season. On Monday, however, Sabaté said he learned that the music for his Minions routine hadn’t been cleared for use in Olympic performance.

He had planned to skate to a medley of songs including the Minions’ cover of Universal Pictures’ famous fanfare and a Pharrell song that appeared in “Despicable Me 3.” A few of the medley songs were since been cleared for use, following public uproar over the possible de-Minion-ization of the event, but a few more tricky legal jumps remain.

With figure skating events due to begin on Friday, Sabaté and his team still don’t know know whether he’ll be able to skate as a Minion. “He was and still is very worried,” De Bernardis said in an email. “There is no time to create something new and strong.”

It’s unusual for a performer to learn so close to the start of the Olympics that the soundtrack to their routine hasn’t been cleared. But copyright issues have haunted the ice since a 2022 lawsuit accused two American Olympians of skating to a song without permission. This is the first Winter Games after that suit, and skaters still aren’t clear about why some songs aren’t permitted.

“It hasn’t been a thing that figure skaters have really had to think about for the many, many decades that figure skating has been around,” said Jackie Wong, a figure skating analyst who’s attended practices in Milan. “Nobody has a real, clear answer to this. The number of coaches, choreographers and skaters I’ve talked to — everybody seems to have a different kind of story about what they are supposed to do.”

Skaters are often left in song clearance limbo

Last week, Sabaté learned that his medley wasn’t permitted due to “copyright clearance issues,” even though he had submitted his music through the International Skating Union’s system months earlier and had competed with the program all season long.

“Finding this out last Friday, so close to the biggest competition of my life, was incredibly disappointing,” Sabaté wrote in an Instagram story. “Nevertheless, I will face this challenge head-on and do everything I can to make the best of the situation.”

De Bernardis said Sabaté didn’t receive a “clear and definitive answer” about using Minions music until three days before he left for Milan. The copyright holder also “had a problem with the concept of his costume,” De Bernardis said.

Then on Tuesday, the coach said, Sabaté received surprise approval to use some, but not all, of the songs in his medley. He’s still waiting to learn about clearance for the rest.

“This is a new procedure of getting the licence,” De Bernardis said.

CNN has reached out to Sabaté and the Spanish Olympic Committee for comment, as well as Universal Pictures, Illumination Entertainment (the animation studio behind “Despicable Me” and “Minions”) and NBCUniversal Music.

The International Skating Union didn’t allow performers to skate to songs with lyrics (even gibberish ones) until 2014, aiming to attract younger, less classically inclined viewers. The first time songs with lyrics appeared on Olympic ice was in 2018 at PyeongChang, where Canadian ice dancers won gold for their number set to a tango cover of the Police’s “Roxanne” from the 2001 film “Moulin Rouge!”

But the risks of expanding the music offerings became clear in 2022, when the band Heavy Young Heathens sued American figure skaters Alexa Knierem and Brandon Frazier, along with NBCUniversal and US Figure Skating, for allegedly skating to the band’s cover of “House of the Rising Sun” without permission. (The athletes’ performance helped the US earn silver in the team skating event at the Beijing Olympics that year.) The lawsuit was settled months later, but the high-profile nature of the suit “led to people scrambling,” Wong said.

Some skaters preemptively changed their programs ahead of this year’s Olympics to avoid running into rights issues. Team USA’s Alysa Liu probably won’t be performing her award-winning Lady Gaga routine in Milan, either, due to music rights issues, according to Olympics.com. And Canadian ice dancers Marie-Jade Lauriault and Romain Le Gac had planned to skate to two songs by Prince at this year’s Games before they, too, encountered copyright problems, Wong said.

“I think part of it is also, how comfortable are you with playing with the odds of potentially getting sued?” Wong said. “There are skaters out there who are taking most conservative stance that they can.”

Copyright law is just complicated

Whether Sabaté is able to perform his full Minions medley, his was a complicated copyright case from the jump, said Lauren Wilson, an associate professor at the University of Buffalo School of Law and expert in music copyright law.

Sabaté would’ve needed to obtain two separate licences to perform both the musical composition and the sound recording of that composition for every song in his medley, Wilson said. The venue also needs its own licence to play the compositions, she said.

Compounding things, Sabaté’s medley is made up of several songs, including covers and remixes sung by Minions. The copyright for each song could be owned by multiple entities.

“When you’re dealing with one song it’s complicated enough,” Wilson said. “I heard five or six different tracks. We don’t know how many hands were in there.”

Speaking speculatively, Wilson said that since the songs Sabaté skated to were not precleared on ClicknClear, the tool the International Skating Union uses to approve songs for performances for a small fee (around US$15 to $25, Wilson said), Sabaté would have had to put in a personal request for them.

ClicknClear founder Chantal Epp said if music isn’t already precleared on the platform, ClicknClear helps the athlete seek licences from record labels and publishers, who “have the sole discretion to approve or deny uses of their music.”

Epp said on Tuesday that the platform helped Sabaté obtain approval for songs that were previously denied.

“Copyright clearances can represent a challenge for all artistic sports,” the International Skating Union said on Monday, ahead of the news that Sabaté may skate as a Minion after all. “While the ISU does not have a contractual relationship with ClicknClear, we continue to work collaboratively with rights clearance stakeholders to ensure that thrilling performances can be accompanied by stirring music.”

It’s possible that Sabaté initially received clearance for the songs before he knew he was heading to the Olympics, Wilson said.

“If his licence was individually negotiated, perhaps the Olympics had not been contemplated by that clearance,” she said.

Even songs that are precleared may still be risky to use in Milan, where the audience is worldwide, Wilson said. American skater Alysa Liu performed a celebrated routine to Lady Gaga’s “Bloody Mary” earlier this season, and the song is available on ClicknClear for use in 75 countries, including Italy. But more than 75 countries will be watching the Olympics.

Figure skating fans rooting for Sabaté to skate as a Minion might assume that since NBCUniversal broadcasts the Winter Olympics in the U.S., the company would be more amenable to having the Minions, stars of one of its successful franchises, appear on ice. The banana-loving blobs have already been trotted out to advertise the Games, appearing in a spot with Team USA snowboarding gold medallist Chloe Kim.

“Some of these companies are so big, Universal’s intellectual property is so strong — I’m not saying this is what happened, but they don’t have necessarily a lot to gain from licensing their works for this big of a stage,” Wilson said. “The Minions brand is so strong that they’re going to be fine, whether it gets out there on the Olympics or not.”

While Sabaté waits for final approval on his “Minions” routine, De Bernardis said he’s also practicing a shorter version of his free skate routine, set to the soundtrack of “Saturday Night Fever.”

By Scottie Andrew, CNN