Sunday Times (Sri Lanka)

'Kim Jung Un loves 80s music, basketball and dotes over his baby daughter'

- © Daily Mail, London

Former basketball star Dennis Rodman revealed more about his controvers­ial trip to North Korea, and accidental­ly spilled that the country's dictator has an heir to his power.

He said that Kim Jung Un- the ruler that Rodman called a 'kid'- has a young baby girl and that he heard Kim's wife talk all about her at length during his trip to the exiled regime.

The 51-year-old athlete also told how the North Korean leader likes 80s disco music, is humble and normally wears normal clothes when not appearing for cameras.

'It was insane, they treat him like a god. But Kim is not one of these Saddam Hussein-type characters that wants to take over the world,' Rodman told The Sun.

The image that Rodman is portraying is far from the one of a brutal leader who leaves much of the country in poverty as he postures for an internatio­nal war.

Kim told Rodman to return from the highly publicised trip saying that he wants President Obama to call him — a move that is clearly not going to happen because a Celebrity Rehab star told him to.

'He loves basketball and so does President Obama, so they have that in common — and the even more they could talk about if Obama would just pick up the phone and call him.

Rodman revealed other details about the lavish trip, including the contents of the 15-course banquet (fish, noodles, and meat), the décor of the palace ('marble everywhere') and the height of Kim's wife, Comrade Ri Sol-ju (5'5" which is 'quite tall for a Korean').

The trip was apparently a major success, and Rodman has already accepted a second invitation to visit Kim again for six days in August.

Rodman, who has had well docu- mented issues with alcohol, gave a bizarre and inflammato­ry interview on ABC's 'This Week' on Sunday morning in which he called Kim Jung-un a 'friend for life' and said the dictator wants Obama to call him. 'He's very humble,' Rodman told host George Stephanopo­ulos. 'He's a great guy, he's a great guy.'

'He kept saying what a nice guy Kim is, and how Kim just wants to talk to President Obama about basketball,' an observer told the New York Post.

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