Where Is Lance Armstrong Now? All About the Former Cyclist's Life After His Doping Scandal

Lance Armstrong won a record seven consecutive Tour de France titles before being stripped of them following doping accusations in 2012

Lance Armstrong’s reputation was tarnished by his doping scandal, but he hasn’t stayed out of the spotlight.

The retired athlete was one of the most famous professional athletes of all time, elevating cycling’s international popularity. The height of Armstrong’s career came after he was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 1996, when he was 25. After chemotherapy treatment, he founded the nonprofit Livestrong, won a record seven consecutive Tour de France titles between 1999 and 2005, reached A-list levels of celebrity and became known for his philanthropy.

He spent a decade denying that he took performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) before coming clean in a 2013 interview with Oprah Winfrey. During the sit-down, he admitted to using testosterone, human growth hormone and EPO and taking blood transfusions.

"This story was so perfect for so long. It's this myth, this perfect story, and it wasn't true," he told Winfrey. "I viewed this situation as one big lie that I repeated a lot of times, and as you said, it wasn't as if I just said no and I moved off it."

The tell-all came shortly after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) formally charged him with doping. Armstrong chose not to appeal and was stripped of all his titles since 1998, including the Tour de France wins and his Olympic medal. He also lost endorsement deals and was required to pay a $5 million settlement to the U.S. government in 2018.

In his personal life, the Texas-born athlete divorced his first wife, Kristin Richard — with whom he shares three children, son Luke and twin daughters Grace and Isabelle — in 2003 and soon after began dating Sheryl Crow. They got engaged in October 2005 and split in February 2006. He has since remarried, tying the knot with Anna Hansen Armstrong in August 2022. They have two children, son Max and daughter Olivia.

Armstrong also hasn't left the public eye — he now hosts two podcasts, THEMOVE and The Forward, and competed in the 2023 celebrity reality TV show Stars on Mars.

More than a decade after his doping scandal here’s everything to know about what Lance Armstrong is doing now.

Who is Lance Armstrong?

Lance Armstrong is a former professional American cyclist.

The athlete was born and raised in Texas, began competing in 1990 and made his Olympic debut in Barcelona in 1992. Four years later, he won his second Tour DuPont and participated in the Olympics in Atlanta. But in October of 1996, his life and career paused when he was diagnosed at age 25 with advanced-stage testicular cancer.

“I will win,” Armstrong said during a news conference about his diagnosis, according to NBC Sports. “I intend to beat this disease, and further, I intend to ride again as a professional cyclist.”

He founded the Lance Armstrong Foundation, later renamed the Livestrong Foundation, in 1997 — the nonprofit became ubiquitous and known for its yellow rubber bracelets. Armstrong was declared cancer-free shortly after, began cycling professionally again in 1998 and won his first Tour de France in 1999.

"I hope it sends out a fantastic message to all survivors around the world. We can return to what we were before — and even better,” Armstrong said at the finish line, according to ESPN.

Between 1999 and 2005, he won the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times. Armstrong rose to fame quickly after his first win and became known as much for his athletic career as his philanthropy. He released an autobiography, It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life, in 2000.

Armstrong initially retired after the 2005 Tour de France but announced a comeback in 2008, saying in a video for Livestrong that he was doing so to raise cancer awareness. He finished third in the 2009 Tour de France and 23rd in 2010, which was his last. The then-pro cyclist announced he was retiring for a second time in 2011.

“I can’t say I have any regrets. It’s been an excellent ride. I really thought I was going to win another Tour,” Armstrong said, per The Associated Press.

What was Lance Armstrong accused of?

Starting as early as 1999, the former professional cyclist was accused multiple times of doping.

In August 2005, one month after Armstrong won his seventh Tour de France title, France’s daily sports newspaper L'Equipe reported that six of his urine samples from 1999 were retested and came back positive for EPO, an endurance-boosting hormone.

"This thing stinks," Armstrong said on Larry King Live at the time. "I've said it for longer than seven years: I have never doped. I can say it again. But I've said it for seven years; it doesn't help. But the fact of the matter is I haven't (doped)."

The allegation prompted an investigation by France's World Anti-Doping Agency, and in 2006, he maintained to NBC’s Ann Curry that he had never doped. The International Cycling Union exonerated him, and he returned to the Tour de France in 2009 and placed third. Armstrong has since said that this return led to his downfall.

“We wouldn’t be sitting here if I didn’t come back,” he told Winfrey in 2013.

Floyd Landis, Armstrong’s former teammate, filed a complaint in 2010 and admitted to using PEDs while a part of the U.S. Postal Service team, of which Armstrong was the lead cyclist.

In June 2012, the USADA accused Armstrong of using, possessing and trafficking PEDs and covering up doping violations. Armstrong did not appeal. In a statement at the time, the cyclist said he stopped fighting the investigation because “there comes a point in every man’s life when he has to say, ‘Enough is enough.’ For me, that time is now.”

Armstrong was banned from competing professionally again, stripped of all results since 1998, including his seven Tour de France titles and Olympic medal, and required to return all prize money.

The federal government joined the civil lawsuit in 2013, months after his interview with Winfrey. It alleged that Armstrong had violated his contract and committed fraud when he lied to the public and USPS, which sponsored his team from 1996 to 2004 and paid $31 million in sponsor fees.

The lawsuit was settled in 2018 when Armstrong agreed to pay the U.S. government $5 million, according to CNN.

What has Lance Armstrong said about his doping scandal?

Doping allegations plagued the bulk of Armstrong’s career, but for a decade, he denied them.

After the L'Equipe investigation was published in 2005, the retired athlete noted that he’d dealt with "slimy" French journalists since his first Tour de France but "this is perhaps the worst of it."

"If you consider my situation, a guy who comes back from arguably, you know, a death sentence, why would I then enter into a sport and dope myself up and risk my life again?” Armstrong said on Larry King Live in 2005. “That's crazy. I would never do that. No. No way."

During the interview, he said he did use EPOs as part of his chemotherapy regimen as the drug boosts red blood cell counts but denied using them for competitions.

On his website in 2012, he accused the USADA of wanting to “dredge up discredited allegations,” which he said were “baseless” and “motivated by spite.”

“I have never doped, and, unlike many of my accusers, I have competed as an endurance athlete for 25 years with no spike in performance, passed more than 500 drug tests and never failed one,” he said.

That same year, however, he came clean in a sit-down interview with Winfrey. It was the first time Armstrong publicly admitted to doping.

“This is too late, it’s too late for probably most people. And that’s my fault,” he said, per CNN. “[This was] one big lie, that I repeated a lot of times.”

Describing himself as a “fighter,” “humanitarian” and a “jerk,” he admitted to being “a bully ... in the sense that I tried to control the narrative” and talked about getting lost in his own story of overcoming cancer, a once-happy marriage and his international professional success.

He also noted he let down the fans who had supported him all those years. “They have every right to feel betrayed, and it’s my fault,” he said. “I will spend the rest of my life ... trying to earn back trust and apologize to people.

Armstrong told Stern in 2017 that the now-infamous conversation may have been not only “too soon” but “too detailed and too shocking for a lot of people,” but that “it had to happen.”

“The reason I decided to sit with her is because I had an existing relationship with her and I like Oprah and I trust her, but I knew I was going to get sued. When the report came out and they stripped the titles, I f------ knew they were lining up,” he said, later adding, “I left there feeling wow this is pretty good and the reaction was brutal.”

He was also concerned with how his children would react to the news, noting it was “not a one-time conversation.”

“The older kids were old enough to kind of live it with me and there was that conversation and there was therapy,” he said. “There was work. It’s a process.”

During an interview with Bill Maher on the Club Random podcast in 2023, Armstrong explained how he got away with cheating.

“One of the lines was, ‘I've been tested 500 times. I've never failed a drug test.’ That's not a lie. That is the truth. There was no way around the test,” he said, noting that he did the math to ensure the tests wouldn’t pick up the drugs.

In a March 2024 appearance on The Great Unlearn podcast, Armstrong said that in the years after admitting he had doped, he experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and sought intensive one-on-one treatment.

“I went from hero to zero overnight,” he said. “A lot of people applauded that. A lot of people thought that was funny. A lot of people thought that I deserved that. And a lot of that’s right. I didn’t think it was funny, but I certainly deserved it."

Who is Lance Armstrong's wife?

Armstrong married Anna, a yoga instructor, in a small ceremony at Château la Coste in France in August 2022. The couple got engaged in 2017 after meeting a decade earlier. Their son Max was born in 2009, and they welcomed daughter Olivia in 2010.

“Anna, you have been my absolute rock the past 14 years and let me be clear, I would not have survived them without you,” Armstrong wrote in part on Instagram alongside a photo from their wedding. “I am so proud of the couple we have become - It took us doing the work, the really hard work, and I am so glad that we did.”

Armstrong was previously married to Richard for five years before divorcing in 2003. They share three children — son Luke, born in 1999, and twin daughters Grace and Isabelle, born in 2001.

At the height of his fame, he also dated fellow celebrities, including Sheryl Crow, Kate Hudson and Tory Burch.

Where is Lance Armstrong now?

Armstrong hasn’t stayed out of the spotlight since his doping scandal but has pivoted into new entertainment spaces.

After 15 years of laying low in Aspen, Colo., with his family, he moved back to Austin where he was based during his cycling career.

The former Olympian now hosts two podcasts: THEMOVE, which focuses on iconic cycling races, and The Forward, which is interview-centric. In 2023, he announced that he was launching a series for the latter that “with an open mind” would “dive into” the debate surrounding transgender athletes. The inaugural episode featured Caitlyn Jenner.

The father of five was the focus of the 2020 documentary Lance, part of ESPN’s 30 for 30 series and appeared in season 1 of Fox’s reality TV show, Stars on Mars in 2023.

Though Armstrong cannot return to cycling professionally, after a years-long break, he took up the sport again.

“For three or four years, I hated cycling because of what my life has looked like for the last four or five years,” he said on The Howard Stern Show in 2017. “Just like with any kind of breakup, there are hard feelings.”

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