Christian Hosoi gained rock-star fame and fortune as the highest-paid professional skateboarder in the world by the time he was only 13.
Known for his artistic style and dramatic aerials, Hosoi traveled the world over 10 times competing and showcasing his talents. Yet as skateboarding gained mainstream attention in the late ’80s, he became hooked on drugs and the jet-set lifestyle.
By his 20s, he was using crystal methamphetamine every day, having first gotten high at the tender age of 8.
“I was running from responsibility. There was no hope inside me. It’s only a cover-up. It only prolongs the real problem,” he says of his addiction.
In 2000 Hosoi was forced to stop running when he was convicted of trafficking $65,000 worth of narcotics.
During his five-year prison term, Hosoi’s wife led him to Christ. Hosoi immersed himself in the Word, Bible studies and in prayer.
“I went from living in prison my whole life, living in sin and death on the edge of spending eternity separated from God to getting into a prison cell and getting set free by the power and love of Jesus Christ,” he says. “I was free for the first time in my whole life in a prison cell.”
Hosoi is once again traveling the world—only now he’s sharing Christ at churches, crusades, prisons and skate parks. At 44, he hasn’t given up on skateboarding either; he won Gold at the X-Games Legends Competition in 2009 and 2010.
