DSOTG #4: Tonya Harding
The story of a once iconic figure skater, to one of the most hated women in America.
Although it’s been dubbed a cultural event, there are many who don’t understand why the names Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan are brought up frequently.
There are those select age groups however, who vividly remember seeing this story break the news, or they grew up learning about what happened and suddenly wanting to be more indulged in the cutthroat sport of figure skating.
Now I love me some summer Olympics, but when it comes to the Winter Olympics, it’s just another program in the TV guide that I’m scrolling past. So — why does this story intrigue me? Why am I covering this specific topic? Because even if I only know the term triple axel from watching videos on the internet and researching about why this event was such a cultural reset, the story is captivating.
This newest edition of DSOTG relays a factual retelling of the life of Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding, and the infamous 1994 attack on her competitor, Nancy Kerrigan. We’ll take a look at the events leading up to the attack, the legal ramifications Harding was dealt, and how it impacted the culture, even 30 years later.
The Life of Tonya Harding
Tonya Harding was born in Portland, OR, where she was primarily raised by her mother, LaVona. Harding was LaVona’s fifth child from her fourth husband, and grew up pretty poor; Harding said the family had moved 13 times in the span of five years.
At age three, Tonya got into figure skating, where she trained under Diane Rawlinson. Her mother worked multiple jobs to not only keep food on the table and the lights on in the house, but to make sure she could pay for the price that came with figure skating. Her father, Al, also would work jobs here and there but ultimately was unemployed due to health issues.
LaVona said that even at age three, Tonya was able to mimic the movements of other figure skaters, developing a natural talent for the sport. Tonya also hunted, drag raced and learned auto mechanics from her father. When she was 16, her parents divorced after 19 years of marriage.
LaVona would go on to remarry and Tonya had a 26-year-old step brother named Chris. When Tonya was getting ready for a date one night, Chris entered her room and forced himself on her. She then burned him with a curling iron, and hid in a bathroom upstairs where Chris would break down the door. He continued to chase her around the house until Tonya hit him over the head with a hockey stick. Chris was arrested, but Harding’s mother tried to downplay the situation, saying it was Harding’s “vivid imagination.”
Chris Davidson would pass away in 1988 in an unsolved hit and run accident.
“I wouldn’t go to his funeral,” Harding told Sports Illustrated. “I know it sounds terrible. My mom tried to make me, but I wouldn’t.”
When asked about her mother, Harding said that her mom was “not a good one.” Harding alleges that she faced physical and psychological abuse at the hands of her mother.
“Beating me, dragging me off the rink, hitting me with a hairbrush…right in front of everyone.” Harding said.
“There were so many times when my mother would be upset with me because I didn’t skate good and drag me off of the ice by my hair, take me to the bathroom, and beat my butt until it was black and blue,” Harding recounted.
LaVona however, tells an entirely different story. Though she admits she had hit Tonya before at a competition when she wouldn’t sit still while LaVona tried to do her hair, she said that she was doing her best she could as a mother and worked three jobs to pay for skating to keep her daughter happy.
But LaVona also contradicts herself when there’s a couple of interviews with her when she was asked about hitting Tonya and she says, “I work day and night to get her everything she ever wanted,”
A childhood friend also told People Magazine that some of the stories Tonya detailed about the abuse she endured from her mother were a bit stretched.
“In some ways, I have to say that she was more cruel than a lot of skating mothers at the ice arena,” Luckow said. “She just did it with a lot more honesty. Did Mrs. Harding yell at Tonya to get back on the ice? Yes, but so did every other mother that was pushing their child because of the expense.”
Golden (LaVona) didn’t appear in many interviews, but the ones she did show her face, she didn’t have anything positive to say about her daughter. To this day, the two do not speak nor do they have an amicable relationship.
Meet Jeff.
Jeff Gillooly is going to be a big character as we venture through the remainder of this story.
The two met when Tonya was 15 and Jeff was 17. At the time, she didn’t think she was pretty or had that pretty girl image. But, Jeff would be the first guy to tell her that she was beautiful, and Harding quickly fell head over heels in love with him.
As Harding got older, her life at home didn’t seem to improve much. When she was 18, her mother — who was now with her sixth husband, kicked Tonya out of the house. Jeff and Tonya had been together for three years by this point, and the two quickly moved in together.
The two would marry a year later in 1990; Harding has said that the two got married because she wanted to be covered under his health insurance plan.
However, the honeymoon phase was very short lived. Gillooly would start beating Harding, degrading her, calling her fat, ugly, said she was good for nothing; All things she was used to hearing from her mother.
Tonya talks about one of her lowest moments in The Tonya Tapes, a book written by Lynda D. Prouse that chronicles the life of Harding.
“I remember in 93, before I left, I ended up staying with another friend, her name was Angela. Well, one night I got out with my friend, Wendy…I told Jeff I was going to be back at a certain time, and I was running late, and I called him. I was about a half an hour late because we wanted to get something eat. So I called him up and told him I was on my way home and just a few minutes and then we were finishing up our dinner. He told me to get my ass home. I was like, I will be there when I get there.
“So they get home and Wendy says to come out if she has a problem with Jeff. And then she goes in, and she tells Jeff that she’s getting her stuff and starts packing. He came in threw my bag down and punched me. Jeff pushes her through a glass window into a bathtub.”
Tonya said that she just started to run out, and kept running. When she finally gets to her friend’s house, she calls the police. But, when the police go to talk to Jeff the next day while he’s at work, Harding said that he was able to sweet talk them out of proceeding with any charges.
In 1991, Harding filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. She then filed a restraining order against Gillooly to keep him from entering her apartment or any arenas she was training at, writing, “He wrenched my arm and he pulled my hair and shoved me. I recently found out he bought a shotgun, and I am scared for my safety.”
Tonya Harding would try to date other men, and even got engaged at one point, but not surprising, her and Jeff Gillooly got back together.
“I know it seemed like I was happy, but something was missing, and now I know what it was. Jeff and I love each other more than ever,” Harding said. “We’re going to get a counselor and work it out. I know he’s changed. I see it in his eyes, and I believe in him.”
According to Harding, without Jeff, she wouldn’t have been able to continue figure skating.
LaVona apparently tried to warn Tonya about Jeff, and tried to talk her out of getting married to him.
“I tried to talk them out of getting married,” says LaVona. “I knew Jeff had a violent streak. Once when Tonya was living with me and my new husband, he tried to break down the door because he thought she had gone out with another boy. It turned out it was her brother she’d been with.”
“The Whack Heard ‘Round the World.”
By January 1994, Tonya Harding was quite the name in the world of figure skating. She was determined to be the best, even despite financial hardships. Figure skating is an expensive sport, so Harding often found herself relying on Jeff or other family members to help pay for the pretty outfits so she could stray away from the “tomboy” image. She wanted to look better than her “rival” competitor, Nancy Kerrigan.
While training under Rawlinson, Harding had a pretty successful skating career. She would however part ways with Rawlinson after 14 years of training together when she would be delegated to Dody Teachman; One of Rawlinson’s first students.
Some of her accolades include:
Sixth place finish at the 1986 US Figure Skating Competition
Fifth place in 1987 and 1988, and a third place finish in 1989.
Placed first in the 1991 and 1994 US Championships.
In 1991, Harding became the first woman to compete a triple Axel in the short program. She also became the first woman to successfully execute two triple Axels in a single competition, and the first ever to compete the triple Axel in combination with the double toe loop.
Tonya Harding took home the silver medal at the world championships and placed fourth at the 1992 Winter Olympics in France, behind Kerrigan.
I want to pivot a little bit and talk about Nancy Kerrigan. At just nine years old, she won her first championship. But, the wins didn’t come easy for her as well. Kerrigan, like Harding, did not come from money; her mom worked multiple jobs to pay the expenses for her daughter to figure skate. Her family was pretty close-knit, though.
Her brothers were in hockey, so skating was almost a given for Nancy. She was what you could say is a natural.
Another thing she had a one up on Tonya were her looks. Kerrigan was extremely photogenic, which made her more interesting and intriguing to watch. It was clear that she was easier to talk to, unlike Tonya, who had that little bit of that rough shake look, she wasn’t as prim & proper as a Nancy Kerrigan.
As soon as Kerrigan entered the competitive scene, the media rode with the story that her and Harding were going to be huge rivals. With the help of her triple Axel, Harding was able to beat out Kerrigan in the 1990 and 1991 US Championships.
However, Harding would finish fourth in the 1992 Olympics behind “rival” Kerrigan. From there, Tonya Harding was determined to come out on top and better than Kerrigan any time they would meet face to face.
Following a training session in Detroit, Michigan, Nancy Kerrigan stopped to speak to a reporter in the hallway that led to the locker room when she was ambushed by someone she didn’t know, who smashed her right upper thigh with a metal bar, causing Kerrigan to collapse.
Thankfully it wasn’t a break, but some tendons and muscles were injured in her thigh, which would impact her ability to perform and compete at the upcoming championships that were just two days away.
Kerrigan had no clue who her attacker was, and the funny thing is, the assailant didn’t even try to cover their identity, and through surveillance footage, they were able to identify the attacker as Shane Stan, and his getaway driver, Derek Smith.
Why are these two names relevant? Stan was a great friend of Sean Eckgart, who happens to be a longtime friend of Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly! Eckhart also at one point, acted as Harding’s bodyguard.
Why did a figure skater need a bodyguard? Well, she really didn’t. Harding had received one death threat, and that prompted her husband, Jeff to have his friend Sean, assume a role as a bodyguard. Unsure if Sean was actually paid for it, or if it was just for boosting his image, but again, Tonya really didn’t need a bodyguard.
Ultimately, it would be Sean that organized the attack on Nancy Kerrigan, and he couldn’t keep his big mouth shut, bragging to anyone and everyone that would hear him speak that he was the perpetrator who clubbed Nancy in the knee.
Tonya skated in the US Championships just two days after the attack, but Kerrigan was unable to. Tonya won gold, but would she have won with Kerrigan competing? Not sure, but regardless, Harding had secured her spot in the 1994 Olympics.
Harding denied any involvement in the attack, maintaining her innocence throughout the whole legal process.
As a result of this attack and the legal proceedings, Tonya Harding was stripped of her 1994 gold medal from the US Championships. Additionally, she pled guilty to conspiring to hinder prosecution; She admitted to knowing about the plot of the attack, but didn’t report it. She then was sentenced to three years of probation, 500 hours of community service, issued a $160,000 fine, and was subsequently banned from participating in any future US Figure Skating Association events.
Sean Eckhart, Derek Smith, and Shane Stan pled guilty to charges involving racketeering and second degree assault for their roles in the crime and as a result, they all received 18 month prison sentences.
Jeff Gillooly pled guilty to racketeering and received a two-year prison sentence for organizing the crime.
The Results of Skating on Thin Ice
Tonya Harding would never compete or professionally skate again after this process. She faced so much public scrutiny about how much she knew, if she was actually the one who orchestrated the attack on Nancy Kerrigan, and how she tarnished her own skating career.
Around 2004, Harding dipped her feet in boxing, and also released a book in 2008. After she was banned from competing in amateur skating, Tonya Harding never took the ice again.
Harding did tell Oprah in a 2009 interview that she has moved on from the 1994 situation, and sends her warm regards to Nancy Kerrigan.
“If she’d let me, I’d love to give her a hug and just tell her how proud I am of her being able to go forward with her life,” Harding said. “She’s moved on. I’ve moved on. It’s part of history that will always be with us. But I’m also noted as the one and only American woman that did the first triple Axel and those are the things that no one can take away from me.”
In 2017, the movie, “I, Tonya” hit theaters, starring Margot Robbie as Harding and Allison Janney as LaVona. The movie takes the audience through Harding’s upbringing in Oregon through the attack that put her name in sports history.
Tonya did cooperate with the making of the film, and even said was brought to tears and was grateful for the movie. Screenwriter Steven Rogers said that Harding “said she laughed and she cried, and there were things she didn’t like, but she’s emailed me twice just to thank me, so I think she’s happy.”
Margot Robbie, who did an exceptional job portraying Harding, said that she was very understanding and “incredibly lovely.” The two were even seen walking the red carpet together at the premiere in 2017.
At the time of writing this (January 30th), Tonya Harding is happily married and is living in Washington state. She also was a feature on Season 26 of “Dancing with the Stars” in 2018, and as of January 2024, she was working as a custodian for some businesses and finally made her return to skating. Harding will post videos of her on the ice from time to time on social media.
She just recently joined X (formerly Twitter), where she posted a video expressing her feelings and sadness about the plane crash that occurred on Tuesday, January 29 outside of Reagan National Airport that took the lives of members of the figure skating community.
“The events that took place last night in Washington D.C. are absolutely devastating,” Harding said in a Tweet. “I’m being told that several professional figure skaters were aboard the flight as well. Sending my love and prayers to all the victims and their families.”
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