For Alex Honnold, the feat of free solo climbing Taipei 101, one of the tallest buildings in the world, was never about the money. Even so, he said he was paid an "embarrassing amount" to perform the daring climb on Netflix's Skyscraper Live on Saturday, January 24. "Actually, if you put it in the context of mainstream sports, it's an embarrassingly small amount," Honnold, 40, joked in a story with The New York Times, published Friday, January 22. "You know, Major League Baseball players get like $170 million contracts. Like, someone you haven't even heard of and that nobody cares about." The Times reported that Honnold made "in the mid-six figures for the climb." Olympic Skateboarder Nyjah Huston Fractures Skull After 'Death Defying' Stunt Not that the money matters to him. He told the outlet that he would have scaled Taipei 101 for free. "If there was no TV program and the building gave me permission to go do the thing, I would do the thing because I know I can, and it'd be amazing," he said. "I mean, just sitting by yourself on the very top of the spire is insane. And so, you know, if there wasn't the whole spectacle around it, and I just had the opportunity to go do it by myself, I'd be fine with that." Alex Honnold Photo by I-HWA CHENG / AFP Free solo climbing is a form of climbing done without the help of any ropes, harnesses or safety equipment beyond climbing shoes and chalk for grip. Honnold rose to fame in 2017 when he free soloed El Capitan, a vertical rock formation in California's Yosemite National Park. His training and the climb itself were documented for the 2018 Netflix film, Free Solo. Honnold has been planning to climb the 101-story Taipei 101 for years, and was originally slated to do just that on Friday, January 23, before weather forced him and Netflix to delay the stunt by a day. When Honnold finally climbed the 11th-tallest building in the world, Netflix showed his attempt on a 10-second delay, just in case something went horribly wrong. Free solo climbing is a pass/fail test, where failing means almost certainly falling to your death. Honnold knows this, and said he frequently gets asked if his ambitions have changed since he and wife Sanni McCandless started their family. (The pair welcomed daughters June in 2022 and Alice in 2024.) Tom Cruise Didn't Get Paid for His Show-Stopping Olympics Stunt "Honestly, I don't think the calculus has changed that much," he said. "Because I never wanted to die. Which is why I put so much effort into the preparation and training. I mean, implicit in the question is that I have more to live for, and, yeah, I have more to live for, and I'm still doing my very best to not die." Honnold explained that climbing is in his blood. He's been doing it since he was 5 years old, starting in a gym and graduating to actual rock climbing by age 10. Honnold is still embracing his inner child. "My hope is that people watching it will at least see the joy in it," he said. "Like when you're a kid and look around and think, It'd be amazing to climb up there. As an adult, that gets hammered out of you. 'Why would you do that? That's dangerous. Do you have insurance?' You know, all that type of stuff. But there's something to be said for maintaining that childlike joy of just looking at it, like, That is amazing. I want to do that."