Well, first of all, I don't know how many of you
have seen the movie "I, Tonya."
How many people have seen "I, Tonya?"
[CHEERING]
And for those of you who have not, you should see it.
It's a great movie, it's a brilliant movie,
I love the way it was done.
And as soon as I saw it, I said, "I want to meet Tonya Harding
and I want to have her on the show,"
because I just thought it was finally--
everyone was seeing, I think, the story
that should have been told instead of what was out there.
Anyway, so.
And before we talk about the movie,
because I really loved the movie and hopefully you love it too,
have you been watching the Olympics?
I have.
And what do you think about all the American ice skaters?
Wow.
I'm so glad I'm not competing against them now.
Really?
What's changed?
Well, the point system and everything else.
And I was always about doing the triple axle or the triple
triple.
And nowadays, you can do the triple triple
and still get the same points as you can
when you do the triple axle.
So why do the triple axle?
Right.
OK.
And you were the first woman to do the triple axle, right?
American woman, yes.
OK.
American woman.
And when that happened for you, do you remember that day
and do you remember the feeling you had?
Oh yes.
I was like, "Yes, I did it.
I did it."
See, I competed for me, but I performed for the people.
Right.
So because even in the movie like,
Margot Robbie who produced the movie
and is in the movie who's fantastic as you,
she said that they couldn't even get a double
to do the triple axle because no one was willing to risk it
before the Olympics, because that's how scary
and how hard it is.
So it's a difficult thing.
It's 3 and 1/2 revolutions instead of being three.
Yeah.
All of it seems hard to me.
Like every single thing I see looks really hard.
So you participated in it-- when these were two years apart
at the time.
In '92 and '94.
And you look back, and especially taking everything
into consideration of what happened with you,
what are your memories of that?
Being there for the first time and stepping
on the ice for the practice sessions you're going,
"Holy crap.
Oh my God, this is the Olympics."
Then you have to remember that you need to bring yourself
back down to a level that this is just another competition.
So then you're like that for a bit and then you
start looking around again and you're like, "Holy crap.
This is the Olympics.
I made it."
Yeah.
So you were in the Olympics and now you
have this amazing movie, and what are
your thoughts about the movie?
The movie was fantastic.
Everyone did such a great job.
Margot putting out so much effort
to learn how to do the jumps and to learn my backwoods hick girl
kind of attitude and everything.
And Allison totally blew it out of the water.
Allison Janey is brilliant in this film.
Brilliant.
I mean like, that was my mother.
[CLAPPING]
So really-- I mean, I say she's brilliant
and it's also sad because that really was your mother.
So how did you go out there and perform
when you had that kind of energy coming at you?
When someone tells you that you're fat, you're ugly,
you're never going to amount to anything,
it makes you want to overcome that and be
the best that you can be.
Prove her wrong.
Absolutely.
Yes.
And boy did you.
I did.
I may have waitressed a little bit at everything,
but I didn't want to be like her.
I wanted to go out and do something more for myself.
Right.
But I was very excited that I achieved something
in my life that meant something.
And then with the new movie, it actually
made my life feel like it was worth something.
Yeah.
Well first of all, I should say--
and I hope you take this in, you made something of yourself
no matter what happens and if this movie hadn't been made.
I'm glad it was made because I walk away from that going,
I know you knew something was happening,
but you had no idea what they were going to do.
And that's what I got from the movie.
And then you go to the Olympics and then
everybody had an opinion about you.
They did.
And now I look back and I'm just glad that my life can
help other people.
Realize, "You know what?
You are beautiful inside."
No matter what anybody else says,
love yourself because that's all that matters.
Yeah.
That is all that matters.
Everybody else can just kind of, you know.
And you sure are beautiful inside.
All right.
[CLAPPING]