Kelly Slater is 52 years old now. He was the youngest ever world champ at the age of 20, then became the oldest at the age of 39. Name an award in surfing, and Slater likely has won it. And while he’s not the same consistent threat on tour he once was, he’s still not a draw anyone wants. Slater still has whatever magic he has. And at the 61st edition of the Rip Curl Bells Beach Pro, he beat John John Florence and Seth Moniz, both of whom are significantly younger and more spry than the 11-time world champion with a new hip. But a heat win is not the most exciting thing in his life right now… he’s got a baby on the way with longtime partner Kalani Miller.
“I’m super happy,” he said in a post-heat interview. “This is my second child and Kalani’s first, obviously. We’re having a little boy this summer… I think we’re going to have him in Hawaii. We’re really looking forward to it. We’ve been super excited. It’s been really fun. It was fun to keep it a secret from everybody for a long time. We kept it secret from our family for months, and then one by one we were telling friends and kind of filming their reactions and stuff. It’s been a fun time.”
As Slater said, this is his second child. His first is daughter Taylor, who mostly stays out of the public eye. She’s a very talented artist, and back in 2016, Slater talked about his relationship with her as part of a a 13-part interview with Graham Bensinger.
“The whole time my daughter has been raised by her mother almost 100 percent in physical time and I’ve been traveling,” Slater told Bensinger. “The hardest part, I think for me, is my daughter feeling like she doesn’t have a dad there all the time. And that’s hard for her. I know it was especially hard for her when she was younger.”
Congratulations to Kelly and Kalani on the most exciting news ever!
