Does Tonya Harding Deserve a Makeover From the History Books?

In January 1994, a thug armed with a police baton attacked figure skater Nancy Kerrigan at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in Detroit, bashing her above the knee. Kerrigan was knocked out of the championships, leaving a clear path for her rival, Tonya Harding, to win and grab an Olympic spot. Three men were arrested in the attack, which rocked the sporting world.

The biggest bombshell came when Harding’s husband, Jeff Gillooly, was arrested for ordering the attack. He and his friend (bodyguard) allegedly planned the attack, hiring the attacker and the getaway driver. On February 1, Gillooly pled guilty, saying that Harding had known of the plot and approved it.

People Magazine

For weeks, the media went wild with this story. 1994 featured an extra Winter Olympic Games (the previous one had been just two years earlier) as the International Olympic Committee moved them to a staggered schedule from the summer games, which had been held in the same year until then. In the run-up to the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, Kerrigan recovered from her injury and the two U.S. team members continued practicing. The world watched as they trained under tight security and unprecedented scrutiny from the media.

Kerrigan recovered well enough to skate at the Winter Olympics and earn a silver medal there. Harding broke a lace and ended up in eighth place.

On March 16, with the Olympics finished, Tonya Harding admitted that she had known about the plot, entering a plea bargain. In June, she was stripped of her skating championship and banned from the sport for life.

Heroine vs. Villain

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Kerrigan and Harding skating. Photo: Reuters.

Nancy Kerrigan came out as the heroine in media coverage, the innocent victim who recovered to make an impressive Olympic comeback. She had skating talent and good looks. With Kerrigan’s sponsorships and Vera Wang-designed outfits, she was perfectly fitted for the role. She skipped the Olympic closing ceremonies and flew to Disneyworld for her own exclusive parade, Disney having bought itself a princess for a $2 million sponsorship.

Photo: Reuters.

Tonya Harding, meanwhile, was portrayed as a jealous rival from the wrong side of the tracks. She came from a working class town outside Portland, Oregon, where she had met her husband at a fast food restaurant. Harding had grown up with her share of violence and abuse, nearly skating her way out of that past. But the attack on her rival cost Harding her rock star dreams. Once Tonya Harding admitted her own knowledge of the plot to harm Kerrigan, her reputation fell further.

Public Impressions of Harding After Skating

From 2002-2004, booed by audiences but saying that she needed the money, Tonya Harding pursued a celebrity boxing career. Her first fight was against Paula Jones, a woman who had made a sexual harassment allegation against former President Clinton. She beat Jones and finished with a career boxing record of 4-3-0, later going on to race a vintage automobile to a new speed record. In the late 1990s, Harding worked with a ghostwriter to create a memoir, but the project fell apart.

Harding weighing in for boxing. Photo: AP.

In his 2008 presidential campaign, then-Senator Barrack Obama joked about his underdog status with a Harding reference. He characterized peoples’ expectations as being that he’d have no chance to win unless he “kneecaps the person ahead of us, does a Tonya Harding.” While Harding made it clear in an interview that she (understandably) did not appreciate Obama’s reference, his comments seemed in line with most public opinion about her role.

Since 1994, many people have blamed Harding. And yet, she’s always been an intriguing character.

Harding as a Victim

Society has continued to evolve since 1994. One change is a greater understanding that abuse and domestic violence are serious issues which often involve a cycle of dependency. And Tonya Harding seemed to be a victim of abuse and violence. Her mother hit her and berated her verbally. Her half brother once tried to rape her. There was some suggestion that she married her husband at age 19 just to escape that home.

And what of her relationship with her husband, Jeff Gillooly? By early 1994, it had been on again & off again for some time. She had a restraining order against Gillooly and had called 911 emergency several times to report domestic violence. She divorced him once, in 1993, but they got together again soon after. Just months before the skating saga that played out, Harding had called the police when Gillooly had allegedly grabbed her and smashed her head into the bathroom floor.

These reports were known in 1994, but neither her coach nor her family believed in her story. Today, whether her stories were real or exaggerated, they would be a lot harder to ignore. Whoever one chooses to believe, it seems very possible that Harding was stuck in a cycle of dependency in her relationship with Gillooly. And today, perhaps society has more appreciation for the pain and fear that a victim can suffer in such a situation.

But Harding’s story got a little stranger. Harding later explained that the attack was Gillooly’s idea, that he was money motivated, that she had learned about his plot after the attack had occurred, and that she had not come forward with this information earlier because of her fear that he would try to kill her if she did. In an interview, she claimed that when she told Gillooly she would leave him after the Olympics, he pointed a gun at her head, let two other men rape her, then raped her himself and said he would kill her if she talked to the FBI.

Gillooly’s story, of course, was that the attack was Harding’s idea. After the way skating judges had treated her previously, he was just trying to help her make her dreams come true.

So who is more believable, then and now? Even if Harding’s story seems far-fetched, it’s hard to deny she probably was suffering from abuse, violence, or (at the very least) some strong fear. And in that context, perhaps she felt compelled to go along with the attack plot. But did she just go along with it or did she play a larger role?

Recent Evidence Against Harding

In 1994, Nancy Kerrigan explained to the press that the FBI had told her it was convinced that Tonya Harding had been involved in the plot against her. Throughout the saga, the authorities seemed to know more than they could explain. Recently, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s office released new evidence in the case that had not been seen before by the public. This recent evidence did not help Tonya Harding.

Time Magazine

There were two main pieces of evidence that made her guilt appear to be more likely. One was a summary of the conspirators’ statements against Tanya Harding. Gillooly, his bodyguard/friend, the attacker they hired, the getaway driver, and the bodyguard’s parents (since one of the meetings was at their house) each gave evidence about meetings and locations and whether Harding was there or participated.

For example, there were earlier plans to attack Kerrigan at the hotel where she was staying, but the assailants later decided to do this at the arena where she was practicing. According to co-conspirators, Harding was present during various meetings and phone calls, suggesting that she knew what was happening. She even was in the lobby of Kerrigan’s hotel before that hotel attack plan was changed, due to logistical issues.

Source: Multnomah County (OR) District Attorney.

Also, Harding had made phone calls to the hotel (to ask for Kerrigan’s room number) and to the practice arena.

The second big piece of new evidence was a slip of paper with Tonya Harding’s notes on it. These included the address for the practice arena where she believed Nancy Kerrigan would be practicing. She had written down that address for someone, probably either the hit man or the driver.

Source: Multonamah County (OR) District Attorney.

This proof is circumstantial, and other explanations may be possible, but taken together, evidence in the case strongly suggests that Tonya Harding participated in the plot. She may have been a victim of abuse and intimidation, and she had much more of a class barrier to overcome than Kerrigan did. But it seems probable that Harding not only knew about the attack plan, but also participated in carrying it out.

Is Popular Culture Finally Taking Harding’s Side or Just Interested in Her Story?

In 2014, the Harding-Kerrigan saga turned 20, and there were a number of retrospectives. Sarah Marshall, a writer based in Harding’s Oregon delivered a very thorough and well-researched defense of Harding in Believer magazine. ESPN’s 30-for-30 ran a segment called The Price of Gold, which focused on Harding’s story with extensive interviews from her, but not from Kerrigan. Tonya Harding: The Musical opened at a small theater in Los Angeles, taking the angle of a Harding who was frustrated by Kerrigan the princess and shackled by her marriage to Gillooly.

Marshall’s article made a number of points in defense of Harding, the most important of them about the mistaken media coverage that contributed to the pro-Kerrigan narrative. First, Nancy Kerrigan was misquoted after her attack. She never said “Why Me?” as was widely reported. On the video footage after she was attacked, Kerrigan was asking “Why, why, why?” Second, she was never hit on the knee. If the plan was to kneecap her, the assailant missed, because he hit above her knee on her thigh. But the media unfailingly reported that she was hit in the knee. And third, she was not hit with a crowbar, wrench, or metal pipe, as had been reported at various times; she was hit with a collapsible police baton.

Media coverage that turned out to be inaccurate. Kerrigan was widely quoted as having said "Why Me?" but did not, while the press continued to report she had been hit in the knee, when it was actually above the knee.

None of these facts makes Harding innocent, but together they paint the picture of a media that was eager to craft a sensational narrative around the story, true or not. And let’s not forget the contributions of 2016’s Tonya and Nancy: The Rock Opera either. As Chicago Tribune writer Chris Jones described it in his review, the production played up the class divisions, portraying the media as hypocrites. “Here manifest with explicit vulgarity, the media was at once enthralled by Harding’s class mobility and determined to turn her into the bad girl of the story.”

Fast forward to 2017. Apparently, the Harding-Kerrigan story still resonates, as both a major stage theater and a Hollywood studio have created productions involving it. American Theater Company created its T. to give a compelling story of Harding, in the words of the New York Times review, “as a misunderstood, class-cornered dark horse.” As most reviews of this production have pointed out, Harding’s side represents only half of the story.

Up next, we can expect the movie version of her life, I, Tonya, set for release in 2018. It stars Margot Robbie in the title role. Once again, this production focuses on Harding’s story, though that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is favorable to her. Granted, Harding is the more complex and perhaps more compelling figure of the two skaters. Harding has paid a heavy price since 1994, having her championship taken away and facing many years of public shame. But unless she was forced into participating, having a difficult life (before or after) does not excuse her active participation in multiple phases of a crime.

With the public’s apparent interest in Tonya Harding-centric stories, it will be interesting to see how she fares in the history books.