Olympic ice dancer Piper Gilles has spent years gliding through packed arenas, yet one of the biggest moments of her life happened almost entirely off the public radar. While fans were busy tracking her medal runs and comeback from health challenges, she quietly built a marriage with a partner who is far more comfortable behind the camera than in front of the boards.
The man at the center of it all is Nathan Kelly, a former race car driver who met Gilles long after she had become a fixture in elite skating. Their relationship unfolded mostly away from the rink lights, which is exactly why so many fans are only now piecing together who she married and how the two built a life that fits around an Olympic schedule.
From Rockford Rinks to Olympic Ice
To understand why fans were caught off guard by her marriage, it helps to remember how fully Piper Gilles’ life has been defined by skating. Personal details have always been secondary to the image of the meticulous performer from Rockford, Illinois, who turned early promise into a long senior career. Personal records show that Piper Gilles was born in Rockford, Illinois, and that She later attended Cheyenne Mountain High, a reminder that her path wound through typical American adolescence before it narrowed into the grind of elite sport.
Her professional identity is also tightly bound to her on-ice partnership. The International Skating Union notes that Gilles/Poirier teamed up in 2011, pairing her with Paul POIRIER after Poirier had already found success with Vanessa Crone. That long running collaboration with Poirier, often simply shortened to Gilles and Poirier, has been the public love story fans followed, which made it easy to miss that her actual romantic life was unfolding with someone entirely outside the skating bubble.
Meeting Nathan Kelly, the Man Behind the Camera
Enter Nathan Kelly, who crossed paths with Gilles in 2018 and immediately complicated the assumption that her world began and ended at the rink. Reporting on their relationship notes that Olympic ice dancer Piper Gilles met Nathan Kelly, a former race car driver, that year, and the two quickly moved from acquaintances to something more serious. The same reporting frames their story under a NEED and KNOW banner, underscoring how little the public actually understood about who was standing in the kiss-and-cry with her.
Gilles herself has described that first meeting with a mix of humor and surprise. In one recollection, she admitted she was bracing for a much older mentor type, saying she was “expecting a 55-year-old guy” before Gilles realized that the person walking toward her was a peer, not a patron. That anecdote, shared in an interview with Hello, Canada and echoed in coverage that quotes Gilles and When Nathan walked into the room, captures the instant shift from professional expectation to personal curiosity.
From Quiet Dating to a Low-Key Engagement
Once they met, the relationship moved at a steady, private pace that suited both of them. Reports on their timeline say the couple dated for four years, a stretch that covered some of Gilles’ most intense competitive seasons and her recovery from health issues, before they decided to marry. One profile notes that the story of Nathan Kelly and Gilles unfolded largely while she was still chasing Olympic dreams for Canada in 2024, which helps explain why there was little room for splashy public milestones.
Even their engagement slipped under the radar for many fans. A skating-focused Facebook post noted that Piper Gilles surprised most of the community when word spread that she had become engaged to her longtime partner, with the same post casually mentioning that Just as the congratulations rolled in, The ISU was busy circulating a survey about streaming options. The juxtaposition is telling: even in the moment her personal life took a major turn, the broader conversation in skating circles was still about logistics and competition, not her ring.
Why Fans Barely Noticed the Wedding
By the time Gilles and Kelly actually tied the knot, the surprise factor was baked in. Many fans had clocked that there was a supportive man hovering near the boards, but they did not necessarily connect him to a full-fledged marriage. Coverage that asks Who Is Olympic Ice Dancer Piper Gilles, Husband, Meet Nathan Kelly, and frames the question around her Olympic profile, makes clear that a large chunk of the audience was still catching up on the basics of who he is. One piece from the Columbus Ledger, Enquirer even packages the story under the prompt Who Is Olympic, a sign that the marriage itself had not yet become common knowledge.
Part of the disconnect comes from the way skating fans tend to conflate on-ice and off-ice partnerships. For more than a decade, the central relationship in Gilles’ public life has been with Paul POIRIER, and the ISU’s own biography of Gilles/Poirier reinforces that narrative by focusing on their competitive milestones and her health journey, including surgery related to cancer concerns. With so much attention locked on that storyline, a quiet wedding to someone outside the sport was always going to be easy to miss.
The Former Racer Who Became Her Steadiest Support
For those who have only seen Kelly in glimpses on social media or in the stands, his backstory adds another layer to why the relationship works. Multiple profiles point out that Nathan Kelly was also a professional race car driver, a detail that surfaces in coverage asking Who Is Olympic Ice Dancer Piper Gilles, Husband, Meet Nathan Kelly and describing how he later shifted careers. One report notes that Nathan Kelly was also a professional race car driver before he began working as a photographer and videographer, which means he understands both the adrenaline of competition and the value of staying out of the spotlight.
That mix of experience has translated into the kind of support system elite athletes quietly rely on. Coverage that profiles their life together repeatedly describes how Ice dancer Piper Gilles has the tireless support of her husband, who now spends much of his time capturing her world through a lens rather than chasing his own podiums. Another piece that asks Who Is Olympic Ice Dancer Piper Gilles, Husband, Meet Nathan Kelly and appears in Kansas coverage underlines that Meet Nathan Kelly is not just a tagline but a genuine introduction for fans who are only now realizing how central he has become to her day to day life.
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