A different breed on the court, this NBA Hall-of-Famer was from a different planet off the court.
Known as much for his flamboyant style and antics as his play, this athlete-turned reality
star became a celebrity influencer before social media ever existed.
This is the untold truth of Dennis Rodman.
During a 1990 interview with The New York Times, a then-29-year old Dennis Rodman discussed
his difficult upbringing and the poverty that came with it.
He recalled bussing tables at a Dallas restaurant making "$60 a night" and thinking he was making
a lot of money.
At the time of the interview, Rodman was two years into a four-year, $2.6 million contract
with the Detroit Pistons and felt the need to give back.
He recalled a time when he found himself walking back from a Chicago restaurant with his teammates
and seeing a pregnant homeless woman with two small children.
He said,
"I had $250 in my pocket, and I gave it all to her.
If I had $1,000, I would have given her that, too.
There are a lot of people out there that are more worthy of this money.
People without houses.
People living on the street.
I was lucky to come upon this, what I have now."
This wasn't an isolated incident.
The former NBA star regularly did the same for the homeless people of Detroit, saying,
”I gave a lot of money to the homeless this year.
I go to downtown Detroit and give out $50 bills or $100 bills.
You can't help everybody, but you can help some people.
I make millions now.
What's $250?"
During the 1997 NBA Finals, the Chicago Bulls were defending their title against the Utah
Jazz.
Dennis Rodman wasn't playing well during game three of seven, and when asked by reporters
about his performance, the power forward gave an inflammatory excuse:
"It's difficult to get in sync because of all the f---ing Mormons out here.
And you can quote me on that.″
As you might expect, Rodman's comments didn't go over well.
The Salt Lake City branch of the NAACP said they were, quote, "outraged by the insensitive
and derogatory remarks," and The Anti-Defamation League pressured the NBA to take action and
that they did.
Rodman was fined $50,000, the biggest fine in NBA history at the time.
Rodman later backpedaled, saying to the AP,
"That was a bad action on my part.
So we retract that.″
He added that he didn't mean to insult a religion, just Utah Jazz fans, saying,
"The people were giving me the finger and things like that.″
"Are you sincerely sorry?"
"I mean, you know, it's like I said I wouldn't want no one to attack my religion or heritage,
so, you know."
In a somewhat hilarious statement, Bulls head coach Phil Jackson claimed Rodman probably
didn't know what a Mormon was.
He said,
"To Dennis, a Mormon may just be a nickname for people from Utah.
He may not even know it's a religious cult or sect or whatever it is."
After the Detroit Pistons traded him to the San Antonio Spurs in 1993, Dennis Rodman struggled
to connect with his new teammates.
In a 1995 interview with The New York Times, former Spurs reserve center Jack Haley explained
how he became The Rodman Whisperer:
"Dennis will not speak.
And when I say won't speak, I mean, he really won't speak to anyone else on the team.
Maybe just a one-word answer.
He won't return their calls.
They try to ask him things, and he'll just sit there.
So, that's where I came in."
Haley didn't give up on the temperamental star, and after trying to speak to Rodman
for three straight weeks in the locker room, they slowly connected over their shared love
of basketball during practices and games.
Haley added,
"Then one night, he and his girlfriend asked my wife and I if we wanted to go grab a drink
and he took us to a gay bar.
I think he wanted to try to shock me, see how straight and narrow I was.
They had male dancers, you know?
So I shocked him and slipped the guy a buck in his G-string."
The two then became inseparable and Haley helped their coach learn to communicate with
Rodman:
"I told him, the number one way to deal with Dennis is just to be direct with him."
In a 2019 interview with Bleacher Report, Dennis Rodman opened up about his struggles
with depression and discussed his thoughts about ending his own life in 1993.
"I wanted to be loved by somebody or someone because I was never loved by my mother or
father because they were never there.
So when I got to Detroit, they embraced me as one."
However, after the Bad Boys team disassembled, Rodman imploded, saying, quote, "I was all
by myself.
I had nobody to turn to."
He then detailed his lowest moment.
saying,
"I wrote a note and went to the parking lot of the Palace.
I had a gun rack, and I had a gun in my car.
I had it in my hand.
But for some reason, I played this music.
It didn't have anything to do with basketball.
It had to do with this love that I wanted, and it suddenly just left me."
Rodman fell asleep to the music and eventually woke up surrounded by police.
He explained,
"I didn't know what was going on.
I totally forgot I had a gun in my hand.
I didn't expect the NBA to be like that.
I didn't expect teams to just trade players and you say, 'OK, this is a business,' and
forget about it.
That was what drove me to that point."
"When I came to, I realized, I said 'Oh my God', I just totally forgot I was thinking
about suicide."
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.
Details of Dennis Rodman's difficult childhood became clear in his 1996 book Bad As I Wanna
Be, where he discussed his wild and absent father:
"I haven't seen him in more than 30 years, so what's there to miss?
I just look at it like this: Some man brought me into this world.
That doesn't mean I have a father."
Philander Rodman spoke with The Washington Post in 1996, where he didn't do much to push
back on that characterization.
Then a bar owner in the Philippines, Philander claimed to have 27 children, quote, "from
four different wives and extracurricular activities."
By 2012, the number of both children and wives increased.
According to The AP, Philander had boasted, quote, "29 children by 16 mothers" at the
time.
Philander also inferred that his infamous son was actually just a small chip off the
old man's block, saying,
"They think Dennis is bad.
They ain't been around me.
They ain't seen nothin'.
I'm the bad one."
Yikes.
Dennis finally reunited with his then 71-year old father at a 2012 exhibition game in the
Philippines.
Philander told reporters,
"It was great.
I've been trying to meet him for years.
And then last night, boom, I met him.
I was really, really happy and very surprised."
However, the reunion was a brief one.
Dennis spent barely three minutes with his father while signing autographs for fans.
"I always tell kids - especially girls - and I say, you know, I don't know how to be a
father."
After a whirlwind romance and infamous Las Vegas bender, Dennis Rodman married model
and Baywatch star Carmen Electra.
Less than two weeks later, Rodman filed for an annulment and the couple finalized their
divorce six months later.
During a 2010 appearance on Oprah Winfrey's Where Are They Now?, Electra opened up about
their romance and claimed she was self-destructive at the time, because of her mother's recent
passing from brain cancer.
She met Rodman shortly thereafter.
She said,
"Dennis was the life of the party.
He was fun.
I started drinking.
People couldn't understand why I loved him, because he had a reputation for being a bad
boy."
"What I saw in the beginning was this sort of gentle giant that was in a lot of pain."
Then they got married and it was instant regret.
Electra explained,
"It happened so fast.
And I remember right after, I felt like, 'Oh God, what did we do?
What did we just do?'"
She explained that their relationship was, quote, "very passionate" but that this came
with a downside.
She said,
"So, when it was good, it was amazing.
When it was bad, it was the worst."
In 2015, the Hall of Famer endorsed Donald Trump on Twitter, shortly after the then-reality-show-host
announced his candidacy.
Rodman tweeted,
"[Donald Trump] has been a great friend for many years.
We don't need another politician, we need a businessman like Mister Trump! Trump 2016."
Trump clearly appreciated the nod, replying,
"Thank you [Dennis Rodman].
It's time to MakeAmericaGreatAgain!
I hope you are doing well!"
This shouldn't come as much of a shock, as Rodman appeared on the real estate mogul's
show, The Apprentice.
Trump also had nothing but praise for Rodman and his relationship with North Korean leader
Kim Jong Un.
Rodman befriended the dictator, who famously loved the championship '90s Chicago Bulls,
after a 2013 trip to North Korea.
During a 2013 interview on Fox News, Trump said,
"You look at the world, the world is blowing up around us.
Maybe Dennis is a lot better than what we have.
It's not an act.
It's amazing how sharp and smart.
Dennis is not a stupid guy.
He's smart in many ways; he's very street-wise."
Fun fact: Rodman was fired on The Apprentice after his team spelled Melania Trump's name
wrong.
"How do you spell 'Melania'?"
"M, E…"
"Wow!"
Dennis Rodman and pop icon Madonna had a brief fling in 1994, and while most people have
wiped that from their memory, Rodman's time with Madonna gave us a story for the ages.
During a 2019 interview on The Breakfast Club, Rodman claimed the "Material Girl" singer
offered him $20 million if he could impregnate her.
Rodman recounted one memorable phone call:
"She said, 'Dennis, you know that I'm ovulating,' I said, 'What is that?'
I was trying to f--k with her, right?"
He then told the music legend, quote, "I'll be there in five hours."
Rodman flew to Manhattan on a private jet Madonna sent, did the deed, then immediately
flew back to Vegas to finish his gambling.
Imagine the numbers this man would have put up if Instagram was a thing then.
Rodman told Charlamagne the God, DJ Envy, and Angela Yee,
"She asked me that if I got her pregnant, she'd pay me $20 million.
That's if the baby was born."
When asked if he wanted to get Madonna pregnant, Rodman replied, quote, "Oh, I tried."
"I mean I knew her, but, we talked a lot, and that was about it."
"Did you have a fling?"
"I mean, you know, we had a fling."
In 2012, Dennis Rodman found himself in legal trouble after falling behind in his spousal
and child support payments to his third wife, Michelle Rodman.
The amount?
A reported $808,935 in back child support and $51,441 in back spousal support.
Ouch.
And this was all after his child support liability was reduced from $50,000 a month to $5,000.
However, according to his attorney Linnea Willis, who was working pro bono, Rodman was
barely able to cover his own expenses at the time.
Her written court statement reads,
"Respondent Dennis Rodman is broke and cannot afford any additional fees."
Willis also claimed that Rodman was, quote, "extremely sick" due to the effects of chronic
alcoholism.
Rodman's manager, Darren Prince, told ABC News that the basketball legend had a, quote,
"well-documented drinking problem", which was exacerbated by the divorce and his inability
to see his children.
Prince continued,
"As people know, it's a daily struggle.
He has good days and bad ones and good weeks and bad weeks."
Willis characterized Rodman's $50,000 child support requirement as excessive, and added
that her client had never failed to pay at least some amount of support before.
Without his NBA salary, Rodman generates income by endorsements and personal appearances.
As Prince put it,
"He's not hurting, compared to retired athletes, with what he makes, but he's certainly not
making what he made when he was paying with the Bulls."
"People thought I'd be dead, literally, at 40 or 45, 'cause of the way I was burning
the candle at both ends.
Like I said, I'm surprised I'm still here."
ESPN's The Last Dance, the 10-part documentary about Michael Jordan's last season with the
Chicago Bulls, is must-see television, even for non-sports fans.
One high-profile fan of the doc is former Charlotte Hornets' first-round draft pick,
Kendall Gill.
After the fourth installment of The Last Dance aired, Gill appeared on NBC Sports' Bulls
Talk podcast, and told a story that added to the legend of Rodman.
While playing for the New Jersey Nets in the '90s, Gill ran into Rodman and Rodman's teammate
Jack Haley at the NYC strip club "Scores" the night before he would face them on the
court.
Gill recalled,
"I ended up leaving because we got a game the next day.
I gotta get some rest right?
So I end up leaving about 12:30, which is kinda late for me, but I know one of the girls
there.
I said, 'Listen, I'm gonna call you in the morning.
I want to know what time Dennis left.'"
He continued,
"So, I call her after shootaround, and she goes 'he was in there till four five in the
morning,' I was like, 'He won't be able to run with us tonight, we got him.'
Dennis comes in that game and I believe he had like 20 rebounds, man.
Runs like a racehorse."
"I created this monster.
But nobody can say anything bad about me as a teammate."
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