TONYA’S TRUTHS
THE DISGRACED STAR IS ON THIN ICE AGAIN AFTER A SHOCK CONFESSION
The ice skater’s confession gets a frosty reception
It was one of the biggest scandals in sporting history. In 1994, champion ice skater Nancy Kerrigan was bashed in a vicious attempt to kneecap her and the finger of blame was pointed at her rival Tonya Harding. Nearly 25 years later, the incident continues to make headlines.
There has been a slew of TV programmes over the years and the feature film I, Tonya has reignited interest in the case. And after years of denying her involvement in planning the attack, Tonya recently admitted in an interview that she overheard a conversation among the men convicted – one of whom talked about “taking somebody out” – several months before Nancy was attacked with a metal baton. But that doesn’t make her guilty.
The four men jailed for the assault included her ex-husband Jeff Gillooly and his friend
Shawn Eckhardt, who hired Shane Stant, the man who committed the attack. Nancy’s injuries put her out of the US National Skating Championships – a competition Tonya went on to win. Both women qualified for the 1994 Winter Olympics, with Nancy earning a silver medal and Tonya finishing eighth.
Tonya later pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiring to hinder prosecution of the attackers,
“I did overhear them talking about stuff where, ‘ Well, maybe we should take somebody out’’’
which in effect meant she knew who had carried out the attack but did not report it.
She was sentenced to three years’ probation, 500 hours of community service and $160,000 in fines. She was also barred from taking part in skating competitions.
On the show Truth and Lies: The Tonya Harding Story, which has just screened in the US, Tonya continued to maintain she had no prior knowledge of the attack but admitted she caught snippets of a discussion between her then-husband
Jeff and his friends a couple of months before the incident.
“I did overhear them talking about stuff where, ‘Well, maybe we should take somebody out so we can make sure she gets on the team,’” Tonya says in the doco. “I remember telling them, ‘What the hell are you talking about? I can skate.’”
After Nancy suffered severe bruising to her lower thigh in the attack, Tonya says “it popped into my head” that
Jeff and his friends may have been involved.
Although she did go on to compete at the Olympics, the incident effectively ended the career of a talented skater who earned fame as the first woman to successfully complete a very tricky turn called a triple axel in a US ice-skating competition.
She became one of the most reviled people in the States and the subject of much abuse. Dead rats were stuffed in her mailbox and her vehicles were smeared with excrement.
She drifted from job to job, with her CV including boxer, actor, welder, painter and sales assistant in a hardware store. For a while, she did the commentary on a TV show entitled World’s Dumbest. She tried a musical career, but she and her band were booed off stage in their only performance.
In 2010, she set a new land speed record for a vintage car, reaching 156km/h in a 1931 Ford Model A.
Tonya is now married to her third husband, Joe Price, and is the mother of a seven-yearold, Gordon. The former skater (47) cooperated with the documentary makers and movie producers because she wanted people to know about her troubled early life.
I, Tonya, which is based on hours of interviews with both Tonya and her ex Jeff, paints a picture of a difficult childhood with a physically and mentally abusive mother, and then a short-lived marriage to a man who beat her and made her feel worthless.
Tonya told the New York Times that she loved the movie, in which she is played by glamorous Australian actress Margot Robbie, but it wasn’t completely accurate.
She pointed out that some of the injuries inflicted on her by Jeff were far worse than those depicted in the film and that she doesn’t swear as much as her character. Nor did she have a fur coat made out of rabbits she had hunted (she’s a crack shot with a bow and arrow).
But other than that, the film is “magnificent”, she says.
Nancy, on the other hand, has not watched I, Tonya. Now a mother-of-three who went on to be a professional ice skater and last year competed in the TV show Dancing with the Stars USA, Nancy (48) says, “I haven’t seen the movie.
I’m just busy living my life.”