Kriti Mehrotra
If there’s one thing absolutely nobody can deny, it’s that Rachael “Raygun” Gunn has been quite a polarizing figure ever since she made her Olympic debut in Paris in the summer of 2024. The breakdancer (AKA breaker, or b-girl) had been carefully selected to represent her homeland of Australia, but her quirky style led her to not only score low but also face international ridicule. Her road to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, her significant efforts concerning the same, and its intense aftermath have all been chronicled in Netflix’s ‘Untold: Raygun: Breaking Badly.’
How Did Rachael “Raygun” Gunn Earn Her Money?
Although New South Wales, Australia, native Rachael Gunn was just a young girl when she first developed a passion for dance, breaking was not something she had in mind at the time. She primarily trained in more traditional styles such as ballroom, jazz, and tap, with her love for them deepening while she attended school, as she realized they could be a form of pure self-expression. It was thus no surprise when the bright, clever young woman chose to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in Contemporary Music & Cultural Studies from Macquarie University upon graduation.
Rachael’s interests evolved as she learned more about the world of arts and experienced new things, yet it wasn’t until she met her future husband that she came to know about breaking. Samuel Free was a b-boy going by the name of Sammy Sex back in 2008, and seeing him in a competition alongside women who were judged on the same basis as him blew her mind. That’s because most of the styles she knew or studied were largely gendered, so she couldn’t help but be intrigued by what her new boyfriend was involved in and decided to pick it up herself as a hobby.
Rachael earned her degree in 2009, following which she served as an Administrative Assistant and Receptionist at Hall Consulting Group from 2010-2011 while also starting to breakdance competitively. She had the unwavering support of not only her family but also her then-boyfriend turned coach, soon resulting in her taking up the moniker of Raygun, a portmanteau of her full name. She then returned to her alma mater to pursue a Ph.D. in Media, Music, Communication, & Cultural Studies, where she found a good balance between careers in academia and breaking.
Rachael not only served as an Academic Tutor and Guest Lecturer throughout her time as a graduate student from 2011 to 2016, but she also continued to b-girl in many local as well as national competitions. As if that’s not enough, she even dabbled in Research Assistant and Student Representative roles before successfully defending her final thesis in 2016 on what it’s like to be a female breaker. Her dissertation was titled ‘Deterritorializing Gender in Sydney’s Breakdancing Scene: A B-girl’s Experience of B-boying,’ candidly exploring the intersection of the dance form with gender.
It turned out 2016 was a big year for Rachael as she even had an article published in the renowned peer-reviewed academic magazine called Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies. She followed this up by landing a Media Studies Scholarly Teaching Fellow position at her alma mater in 2017, which she maintained until she evolved into a full-time Lecturer in 2020. She had also had a chapter titled ‘Nocturnal Paradox: How Breakdancing Reveals the Potentials of the Night’ published in the book called ‘Nocturnes: Popular Music and the Night’ by this point.
Rachael subsequently penned a breaking culture article for Feminist Media Studies in 2022, and a chapter titled ‘In a Good Way There’s No Beef, but the Bad Thing is There’s No Beef: Tensions and Changing Cultural Politics in Sydney’s Breaking Scene’ in the 2024 book ‘Representing Hip Hop Histories, Politics and Practices in Australia.’ She did so all the while actively training as a breaker under the watchful eye of her husband, as well as happily competing in different competitions, resulting in her being placed second in the Australian Open B-girl Ranking in 2022.
Raygun secured the top b-girl ranking in 2023, with her statistics indicating she either won or was in the top 3 at many national breaking events over the previous 5-10 years. As if that’s not enough, even though she has always had a quirky style, she was so skilled that she was selected to represent Australia at the World Breaking Championships in 2021, 2022, and 2023. Then, with a panel of 9 unbiased international judges watching her every move, she won the Oceania Breaking Championship, securing her spot in the first-ever breaking event at the 2024 Olympic Games.
Although Raygun trained tirelessly, she knew she couldn’t pull off the power moves most people associate with mainstream breaking, so she chose to go down the creative route. However, she received no votes from the judges in any of the 3 rounds she participated in, and with the viewers also not understanding her moves, she went viral overnight. Her Kangroo hops, swift sprinkler, and floor moves became memes before she found herself facing intense backlash, conspiracy theories about her skills/qualifications, and trolling. The ridicule directed at her was so severe that even fellow breakers who admittedly felt offended by her performance came out in support of her, right alongside the World DanceSport Federation and the Australian Olympic Committee.
Therefore, Raygun lay low for a few months before announcing her retirement from competitive breaking on November 6, 2024, citing the response to her Olympic debut. Yet, as the months passed, she rediscovered her love for the sport after realizing she still had the support not only from her family but also from strangers who admired her authentic creativity. She thus got back on the horse and now prides herself on being a “not retired Olympic Breaker” who has learned to embrace the chaos despite all that has happened in the past. Since then, she has left her stable job in academia (in March 2026) to become a full-time dancer and public speaker, focusing on empowering others to embrace their true, unique selves through a blend of the arts and higher education.
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Rachael “Raygun” Gunn’s Net Worth
Rachael has understandably preferred to keep the details of her finances private, and there is no way to discern precisely how much she has earned from the breaking competitions. Yet, considering her skill set, reputation, public speaking engagements, ongoing love for dance, Olympic appearance, and academic career, we believe she has accumulated significant wealth. From what we can tell, an average Ph.D. student of her caliber has a stipend of roughly $40,000 per year, and she likely added $10,000-$15,000 to it annually through her tutoring.
She then reportedly earned $80,000 to $100,000 as a Scholarly Teaching Fellow and $110,000 to $130,000 as a Lecturer, especially given that she served at Sydney’s Macquarie University. Therefore, taking all these aspects into account, along with her potential assets, capitalization on her viral fame, investments, returns, expenses, and philanthropic work, we estimate Rachael/Raygun’s net worth to be AUD$2 million (approximately $1.5 million).
