Michelle Kwan - Personal Life

Personal Life

Born in Torrance, California, Michelle is the third child of Danny Kwan and Estella Kwan, Chinese immigrants from Hong Kong. As a child, Kwan grew up speaking a mixture of Cantonese and English at home. Kwan’s interest in figure skating began at the age of five when she followed her two older siblings (hockey player Ron and figure skater Karen) onto the ice. Karen and Michelle began serious training when Michelle was about eight years old. They practiced three to four hours a day, waking up at 3 am to skate before school and going back to the rink right after school to skate again. Paying for their increased skating-rink time led to financial hardship for Kwan’s working-class family. When Kwan was ten years old, her family could no longer afford a coach, but they were offered financial assistance by a fellow member of the Los Angeles Figure Skating Club that allowed them to train at the Ice Castle International Training Center in Lake Arrowhead, California. Michelle attended Soleado Elementary School in Palos Verdes, California, but left public school to be homeschooled in 1994, when she was in the 8th grade.

After graduation from Rim of the World High School in 1998, she attended UCLA for one year. In the fall of 2006, she transferred to the University of Denver. In June 2009, she graduated with a bachelor's degree in international studies and a minor in political science from Denver's Josef Korbel School of International Studies. In 2009, she began graduate studies in international relations at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and graduated in 2011. On May 8, 2010, she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Southern Vermont College.

In September 2012, Kwan announced her engagement to Clay Pell, director for strategic planning on the National Security staff at the White House. Kwan and Pell, the grandson of the late Rhode Island Senator Claiborne Pell, met in April 2011.