More than money: Why Super Bowl slackline sensation Andy Lewis thinks turning down Madonna was the right choice

It doesn’t matter if they’re crossing canyons on a 25-millimeter slackline, balancing in front of millions of fans or traveling the world in search of a new stunt — the North star for Andy Lewis and Breannah Yeh remains constant: follow your passion.

“Whatever you want to do, just do it. No hesitation. Just do it,” Yeh said at the Solaris Plaza during Thursday’s GoPro Mountain Games CoLab panel session. Yeh and Lewis answered questions and played the slackline version of H-O-R-S-E during a sunny afternoon in Vail.

“You don’t know where you’re going to end up,” continued Yeh, who started her competitive career as a 14-year-old at the 2012 Mountain Games and has since been featured in the New York Times and amassed 2.5 million TikTok followers.

“I’d never thought I’d come back and speak and judge with Andy, who is one of my heroes.”

Lewis has had to put his money where his mouth is when it comes to his foundational life principle. After starring in the Super Bowl halftime show with Madonna in 2012, the then 25-year-old was offered to go on tour the following year with the pop icon. He declined.

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“Technically speaking, she said no to me,” he clarified on stage. “She wanted me to go and I asked for a million dollars. I was like, ‘I will go for a year, I’ll be my best self — million bucks.’ And she’s like, ‘I’ll do 350,000.’ And I was like ‘I’m walking.'”

Lewis said Madonna tried to reason with him, but all of her temptations — traveling the world to see beautiful places and live your dream — fell flat.

“I already do it,” Lewis recalled saying. “I was like, ‘give me something I don’t have,’ which is a million dollars.”

The 37-year-old discovered slacklining for himself at the sport’s birthplace — Camp 4 at Yosemite National Park — and has played a major role in its development ever since. He not only won the first world championship in 2008 in Scotland, but the next three as well. He’s energized the sport’s expansion, increased by Gibbon’s creation of the first trickline in 2013.

“It evolved in all directions,” Lewis said. “Slacklining became highlining, became long lining, became long highlining, became free solo — now you can just do it anywhere, anytime.”

Lewis has made his mark in all departments. He has several FA’s — ‘first across — highlines and held or still holds American records for longest highline, longest free solo and highest walked slackline (between two hot air balloons — no big deal). Yeh is quite a daredevil, too, balancing across slacklines as high as 3,000 feet above the ground.

Those types of feats pose a fair question: how does one set that up?

“There’s many ways to rig it,” Lewis said before explaining how one can use a drone to string something over a kilometer in distance in “about 10 minutes.” Yeh prefers the potato cannon launcher.

“Whatever way you can get it across the canyon,” she said.

Looking ahead, the 26-year-old said the level of international talent in slackline warrants its consideration as an Olympic sport. Lewis, however, seemed to have some doubts.

“In terms of the Olympics, slacklining is far too free spirited right now,” he said before pointing out his chief concerns: It’s not the kind of sport with a clear score. Winners are based off of feeling, he said.

In other words, it’s more of an art form.

“It’s like, two slackliners are given a canvas and the same paints and they paint two pictures in two minutes and then the judges are asked which picture they like more. That’s not a contest,” Lewis argued. “That’s an opinion.”   

He does believe the sport is “trending upwards” and sees it becoming more standardized and visible in places like schools and even therapy settings.

“To be honest, I think it has so many skills in teaching people confidence about themselves.”

Like the confidence to turn down an offer from Madonna. Or rather, the confidence to get rejected by Madonna — if that’s the way you want to spin it. When asked after the show what kind of financial situation he was going back to, Lewis hinted it wasn’t much. Basically nothing, in fact. But he had what he loved … and that’s what counted.

“Money is the middleman to your dreams,” he said off stage to this reporter. His sentiment was that time and a passion for what you’re doing matter more than a paycheck.

“If you’re already doing what you love,” he said. “Then, what’s money?”