Tonya Harding's downfall is one of the saddest in sports history, but the tragic details
of her life provide some important context for her unfortunate fate. These are the tragic
details about Tonya Harding revealed.
Figure skating is an expensive sport to pursue professionally. In 2018, Market Watch reported
that it costs "between $10,000 to $20,000, if not more," for an Olympic hopeful skater
to compete. No matter what the equivalent cost was in the late '80s and early '90s when
Tonya Harding started competing at that level, her family couldn't afford it. She grew up
in Portland, Oregon, in poverty. Her longtime coach, Diane Schatz-Rawlinson, explained Tonya's
situation rather bluntly in the 1986 documentary film "Sharp Edges."
"Skating, for Tonya, is her ticket out of the gutter."
Harding's coach continued to say,
"[She lives] in a terrible rental house, no supervision at all, she has no direction,
there's not much to do."
Schatz-Rawlinson also claimed she paid for much of Harding's expenses. Furthermore, Harding
largely relied on people donating their time or discounting their products to get skates,
ice time, costumes, and choreography for her programs. Sometimes, Harding's mother, LaVona
"Sandi" Golden, would make her costumes that had, quote, "sequins everywhere so that her
thighs got cut up" per The New York Times. Sports reporter Ann Schatz explained the extent
of Harding's poverty in the ESPN documentary "30 for 30: The Price of Gold."
"[Tonya] skated a lot of times without food in her stomach. She skated not really [knowing]
if that next lesson was going to come or not because she didn't know if she could pay for
it."
In other words: Figure skating was Harding's only path to a better life.
Tonya Harding's mother LaVona "Sandi" Golden believed that her daughter needed negative
reinforcement to succeed in her sport. Golden said in the 1986 documentary film "Sharp Edges,"
"If there's no 'You can't do it' type thing, she won't do it."
In the same documentary, a then-15-year-old Harding alleged that Golden physically abused
her, claiming,
"She hits me and she beats me and she drinks."
Harding's friend Sandra Luckow, who filmed "Sharp Edges" as a thesis project for Yale
University, told ABC News in 2018,
"I saw [LaVona] hitting Tonya with a hairbrush."
She continued,
"It was very upsetting to me. I never saw anything more than that."
But Harding alleged,
"I don't think that there was more than one day a week, sometimes, that I didn't get beat."
Luckow claimed that
"I was gonna go to child protective services and was told I should stay out of it.”
"It would ruin her skating career."
Harding also alleged that her mother once threw a steak knife at her from 10 feet away
and it hit her arm. Golden denied the steak knife claim.
"There just was never anything good enough for her. She said I would never amount to
anything, that I was fat, that I was ugly."
Tonya Harding suffered alleged physical abuse at the hands of her ex, too. She married her
first boyfriend, Jeff Gillooly, in 1990 to escape her unstable home life, but claims
Gillooly soon started to abuse her. In ESPN's film "30 for 30: The Price of Gold," Harding
said that because of her experiences with her mother, she became conditioned to believe
that someone could hit her and love her simultaneously.
The former Olympian described one of her first memories of Gillooly hitting her for ABC News.
She said he told her 7-11 nachos would make her fat and then smacked them out of her hand
and allegedly hit her across the face.
Harding said of how alleged perpetual abuse affected her,
"I mean I've known that I'm 'stupid, b---h, ugly, fat, never amount to anything' for my
whole entire life. Why do people not think that I would want to fight that, be better
than that?"
In Lynda Prouse's biography, "The Tonya Tapes," Harding claims Gillooly slammed her hand in
a car door when she was trying to flee their home during a fight. He also allegedly accidentally
fired a gun at her during an argument in a parking lot, causing a piece of concrete to
hit Harding in the face.
On January 6, 1994, Tonya Harding's biggest figure skating rival, Nancy Kerrigan, was
struck in her right knee with a baton after practicing for the U.S.. National Championships
at the Cobo Arena in Detroit, Michigan. She had to withdraw from the competition, which
Harding won. By January 12, Shawn Eckardt, Harding's "bodyguard," confessed his part
of the crime to the FBI and laid out the plan that also involved his friends — hitman
Shane Stant, who attacked Kerrigan, and Derek Smith. He also implicated Jeff Gillooly and
Harding.
Smith, Eckhardt, and Stant were eventually charged with conspiracy to commit second-degree
assault. Gillooly pleaded guilty to racketeering. By January 27, Harding held a press conference
addressing her involvement in the incident. She said,
"I had no prior knowledge of the planned assault on Nancy Kerrigan. I am responsible, however,
for failing to report things I learned about the assault when I returned home from Nationals."
Harding eventually pleaded guilty to hindering the prosecution, which is a felony charge.
She was sentenced to supervised probation that lasted three years, and ordered to set
up a fund benefiting the Special Olympics. Harding was allowed to participate in the
Olympics after suing The U.S. Olympic Committee to prevent them from holding a hearing to
discuss her fate, per Bleacher Report.
Before Tonya Harding was convicted for hindering the prosecution in the quest to find Nancy
Kerrigan's attacker, she was able to participate in the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway,
because she pursued legal action to ensure she stayed on the team. But Harding still
had to skate well in order to win the gold medal she wanted, a task she did not achieve.
Harding was in 10th place after the technical "short" program when disaster struck in the
longer free skate final program two days later. She was late to appear on the ice and then
stopped her program after failing to complete her first jump, claiming to officials that
the laces on her right skate broke. Harding was granted the opportunity to redo her program
later, but finished in 8th place overall.
Audrey Williams, an Olympic figure skating judge in 1994, told Good Housekeeping in 2017
that she had seen Harding allege a problem with her skates before. Williams said that,
"I was a referee at a Skate America in Dallas, and she missed her triple axel, and she came
up [and] said her blade was loose. I didn't feel any weakness on the blade."
As for the Olympics incident, Williams said,
"I just couldn't believe that she would do it. And I didn't believe that her lace was
broken. I can't honestly say, I never saw it."
After the Olympics, Tonya Harding was banned from the U.S. Figure Skating Association for
life, per The New York Times. This might not seem like a big deal for a 2-time Olympian
who had already been at the center of so much controversy in the sport. But as The New York
Times explained, the ban effectively prevents her from making a living through the sport
she loves in any way, because it even owns professional exhibition shows like "Stars
on Ice." Plus, Harding is banned as a skater and a coach, so she could never teach a young
skater who was serious about the sport because she wouldn't be allowed to bring them to competition.
Tonya Harding's trouble with the law didn't end with her involvement in the assault on
Nancy Kerrigan. Per the Los Angeles Times, she was arrested for, quote, "allegedly throwing
a hubcap at her live-in boyfriend and repeatedly punching him in the face," Police also stated
that her boyfriend Darren Silver's face was "bruised and bloodied" after the alleged altercation.
Harding was released from police custody shortly after her arrest.
Nearly two decades later, Harding spoke with the Oregon University School of Law about
how domestic violence has influenced her life. While she did not specifically address any
of her exes, she did say, quote, "I dated many men and each one of them was abusive."
When asked to explain instances in which she appeared to have been "violent or even the
aggressor," Harding explained that she only uses physical violence as a defense.
"If people call me the aggressor — it is because I said, 'No, I am not going to take
it anymore!' ... So, I hit back. These men are like 6' and I am like 5'1", but yet I
am the aggressor. No. I am fighting back. And because someone fights back does not mean
that they are the aggressor. It means that they finally had enough."
After being banned from the United States Figure Skating Association for life, Tonya
Harding had to figure out a new way to make a living. Boxing may not seem like the obvious
choice for a disgraced figure skater, but Harding got a taste of it in 2002 when she
appeared in a celebrity boxing match against Paula Jones, a woman who accused Bill Clinton
of sexual assault.
After the celebrity match, Harding began training as a professional boxer, working with Portland-based
boxing manager Paul Brown, and earning as much as $15,000 per fight, The Washington
Post reported. She fought fellow novice Samantha Browning in her first match and the latter
won in a split decision. Harding won her next three matches in a row and was working with
famed boxing promoter Tony Holden by that time. But he told ESPN,
"Tonya started [boxing] way too late and was very limited...Her skills and defense lacked.
It was more of a media attraction than a pure boxing show."
Harding quit after just six professional bouts, losing her last by TKO to Amy Johnson. Harding's
final record was 3-3.
Tonya Harding told The New York Times that even after fulfilling the terms of her plea
deal and being banned from the sport she loves for life for her part in the attack on Nancy
Kerrigan, she still faces ridicule from the public more than two decades later.
"I've had rats thrown into my mailboxes, [expletive] left on my door, left in my mailbox, all over
my trucks. You name it, it's been done to me."
Despite her tough persona, Harding is a human being and constant judgment from the public
would wear on most anyone. She revealed to the University of Oregon School Of Law.
"I had my house ransacked. I had my truck stolen and dropped off of a cliff and burned.
I've been stalked, restrained and beaten."
In the same interview, she was candid about her suicide attempt, saying,
"A higher power took over and I was able to pull myself together. From that day on, I
realized that life is too precious to throw away. ... It's been a long journey since that
day and it wasn't until I was 38 years old when I finally realized that I am worth something."
Tonya Harding had contentious relationships with many family members throughout her life,
but has always said that her dad was her biggest fan. Albert "Al" Gordon Harding died in 2009.
He was 76 years old. His obituary read,
"One of his greatest joys in life was watching his daughter, Tonya, ice skate. He was always
so proud of her
Tonya described her dad as "an excellent man and father" to the University of Oregon School
Of Law.
"[He] came to all my competitions when he could. We talked everyday – he never abandoned
me. My dad was there for me the best that he could be. He was there when I needed a
shoulder to cry on."
If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide
Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255) or text HOME to the Crisis Text Line at 741741.