Nancy Kerrigan is one of the most famous American figure skaters in history, but she knew hardship
from a very young age and into her career on the ice.
This is her tragic real-life story.
Mother's fading eyesight
Life didn't wait to start throwing Kerrigan curveballs.
When she was just a child, her mother Brenda contracted an extremely rare virus that would
have devastating consequences for her family.
Her vision started to blur, and by the time the virus was finished with her, she was completely
blind in one eye and able to see only a little bit out of the other.
Brenda was grateful that she could still at least see her daughter up close, but her compromised
vision meant that she could never watch Nancy competing out on the ice.
Instead, she watched from a television in order to gain a closer view.
In 1992, she told the New York Times,
"As nice as it is being able to look at television up close, being underneath the stands my husband
Dan and I feel we're missing something.
We don't see people and that's a loss.
It's really lousy for him.
It's much more fun being part of a crowd."
Bartering for lessons
After his wife went unexpectedly blind, Dan Kerrigan, a welder by trade, was forced to
assume all of the duties Brenda had previously performed on top of his own.
The couple couldn't afford to put Nancy through the skating lessons she wanted, but instead
of telling her she couldn't have them, Dan struck a deal with the manager of the local
rink.
He would operate the Zamboni and keep the ice in good shape, and in exchange, his daughter
would be taught how to skate.
The Kerrigan family's mornings began at 4:30, with Dan driving his daughter to the rink,
where he would get on the Zamboni, then take a nap while she practiced, and afterward drive
her to school and then go to work himself.
All of his hard work and sacrifice paid off, as Nancy rose through the ranks and quickly
became a skater with Olympic potential.
Clubbed in the knee
It was Nancy Kerrigan's medal-worthy potential that almost led to her downfall.
Two days before the trials for the 1994 Olympic Winter Games began, she left the ice at Detroit's
Cobo Arena, and before she could even remove her skates, she was clubbed in the knee with
a baton.
The assailant was later identified as Shane Stant, who had reportedly been hired by Jeff
Gillooly, ex-husband of Kerrigan's skating rival Tonya Harding.
Doctors told Kerrigan that if the bar had hit her just one finger-width lower, her kneecap
would've been smashed, and she might never have walked again.
The aftermath of the attack was captured in shocking footage, sparking a media frenzy
fueled by the revelation that Harding was somehow involved in the plot to remove Kerrigan
from the competition.
The plan backfired, as Harding only managed to finish eighth at the Olympics in Lillehammer,
Norway, while Kerrigan was able to recover well enough to take home a silver medal.
"Yeah, uh, what makes the human knee bend?"
"It's a ball and socket joint that swings kinda like this."
Death threats
Kerrigan's experience at the Olympics was tainted by the attack.
She couldn't go anywhere without somebody staring, pointing, or taking her photograph.
The ordeal was made all the worse by the fact that she and Harding had to practice together.
Her misery was compounded when she narrowly missed the gold medal and then was uninvited
from the closing ceremony by the Norwegian royal family.
Concerned that Kerrigan's infamy might make her a target, the King of Norway reportedly
asked her not to attend the event for her own safety.
The move seemed over the top to some members of the public at the time, and many people
even thought Kerrigan fabricated the conversation with the king.
But threats were indeed made on Kerrigan's life, and her potential presence at the ceremony
was considered a security risk.
A series of miscarriages
Years after her figure skating career ended, Kerrigan competed on Season 24 of Dancing
with the Stars in 2017.
During her stint on the reality competition show, she shared some heartbreaking information
about her personal life.
It turned out that she had suffered through six miscarriages over the course of eight
years.
In 1995, she married her agent, Jerry Solomon, and they welcomed a son named Matthew the
following year, but it would be another eight years before she gave birth to a second child.
"And it's so hard on your marriage and you think, 'God, what's wrong with me?'"
"You blamed yourself?"
"Of course."
Kerrigan revealed that one of her failed pregnancies went wrong at such a late stage that she had
already told her son that he was going to be a big brother.
"He's so excited he's gonna have a brother or sister and then you have to go back and
say that's not gonna happen."
Kerrigan eventually turned to in vitro fertilization and had her second son, Brian, in 2005, and
her daughter Nicole in 2008.
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