How Barack Obama As soon as Significantly Angered Tonya Harding

Tonya Harding (Tonya Value since her 2010 marriage) rose to infamy within the ’90s attributable to an notorious incident involving Nancy Kerrigan’s knees. Her ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, and bodyguard, Shawn Eckardt, employed a person to assault the competing skater with the aim of breaking her leg. It did not fairly work — Kerrigan left bruised, and she or he went on to win the silver medal on the 1994 Olympics. Harding got here in eighth. Whereas the defamed skater pleaded responsible to ​​conspiracy to hinder prosecution and was faraway from the U.S. Determine Skating Affiliation, she maintained that her ex deliberate the assault with out her information. The scandal has adopted the proficient skater (who was the second girl ever to land a triple axel in competitors) for many years. She turned a preferred popular culture punchline — even Barack Obama could not resist.

At first, Tonya Harding was lower than enthused about getting a presidential shout-out. “He has this nation to consider … and he has to convey me up?” she mentioned on HBO’s “Actual Sports activities,” per The Oregonian. “Guess what?” she added. “I get jobs as a result of he used my identify on nationwide tv.” In her personal phrases, “all publicity is nice publicity.” 

Because the 1994 incident, Harding has appeared on “Dancing with the Stars.” She additionally had a short-lived boxing profession and even turned the topic of an award-winning biographical movie. “Clearly [Barack Obama] did not have sufficient folks taking a look at him,” she quipped on “Actual Sports activities” (through The Guardian).