After Tonya Harding's name became synonymous with an assault scandal that rocked the buildup to the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, many people remained interested (for better or for worse) in the story of an Oregon girl whose proximity to violence forever colored her in the public eye. In the twenty-four years since Tonya Harding's then-ex husband Jeff Gillooly hired Shane Stant to club Nancy Kerrigan's leg and stop her from competing in figure skating, Harding made brief forays back into the spotlight, but none have thrust her farther back into it than the release and success of the biopic I, Tonya.
Tonya Harding showing the judges her broken bootlace during the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics.
Here's a recap of her life over the past two-plus decades:
Skating
Tonya Harding was left with nothing of her former career when she was pronounced guilty of hindering prosecution and forced to remove herself from the United States Figure Skating Association. That removal meant that she could never compete in figure skating again, nor participate in the training of any other figure skater who aspired to the Association. While the option of skating professionally was open (professional meaning as part of an ice dancing show or non-Association tour), Harding instead hung up her skates in the summer of 1994.
Her relationship with Jeff Gillooly
In fall 1994, her ex-husband sold (without Harding's consent) a private sex tape featuring both of them; stills of the tape appeared in the September 1994 issue of Penthouse. Jeff Gillooly, who changed his name to Jeff Stone, said in an interview that Harding knew about and profited from the sale of the tape. He also mentioned that the two have seen each other only once in the past 20 years — they recognized each other at a restaurant but did not speak.
Harding married again in 1995, this time to a machinist named Michael Smith, but their marriage only lasted half a year. They divorced in 1996.
Her current marriage
She met her husband Joseph Jens Price in 2010 when she saw him singing Jerry Lee Lewis's"Great Balls of Fire" in a local restaurant, and they were married within months. She took his name and is legally called Tonya Price. In 2011, she and Price had a son, Michael, Tonya's only child. When she was pregnant with Michael, Tonya competed in salt flat land racing and set a world record for speed racing a vintage gas coupe. Her record, 81.37 miles per hour, still stands today.
A recent New York Times profile details Harding as a mom who raises her son, still skates occasionally (and impressively, even at 47), and enjoys hunting with a bow and arrow with her husband (the bow is a workaround, since her felony charges prohibit her from owning a gun).
Her relationship with her mother
Tonya has been outspoken about the fact that she was abused by her mother Sandy Golden, a facet of her life that is detailed in I, Tonya. In an interview, Golden revealed that she and Harding have not spoken since 2002 and that she has never met her grandchild Michael.
How she's made money
Harding's vague infamy led to increasingly odd opportunities. She bounced from gig to gig, first managing a AAA wrestling team, then appearing in a rarely-seen movie called Breakaway, and performing once as a member of the band The Golden Blades. In 2003, she became a professional women's boxer after appearing on a 2002 episode of the TV show Celebrity Boxing, but only boxed six bouts before retiring. Her last public-facing job was as a commentator on truTV Presents: World's Dumbest..., which often employed celebrities with checkered pasts to comment on videos of criminals doing ridiculous things. The show premiered in 2008 and Tonya appeared semi-regularly until 2013. She's also taken jobs as a woodworker.
In The Press
The incident with Kerrigan has never entirely left the public conscience, and despite more than two decades passing since Kerrigan was attacked, Tonya has been called to speak about it a few times through the years. She appeared on the Oprah Winfrey show in 2009 to speak with Oprah about Kerrigan, where she opened up about her mother's abuse and said she's like to "give [Kerrigan] a hug and just tell her how proud I am of her." In 2014, ESPN released a 30 for 30 documentary called The Price of Gold, which also examined Harding's past and did not fall either way on the issue of Harding's guilt.
More recently, Harding spoke to Good Morning America about feeling afraid for herself after Kerrigan's attack, and nearly walked off an interview with Piers Morgan when he insinuated her guilt in the scandal.
Tonya Harding and Frances McDormand, who won the Golden Globe for playing Harding’s mother in I, Tonya.
The I, Tonya movie
Harding has responded positively to I, Tonya, and is on record as only taking umbrage with two specific things: she maintains that she doesn't curse as much as Margot Robbie's portrayal does, and she never killed animals to make her own fur coat. She bought the coat for herself. Of the general tone of the movie, she's said she's grateful that it showed the circumstances of her life from a perspective that hadn't been captured, more specifically the unyielding abuse she suffered. Despite the fact that she appeared on the red carpet for the movie's premiere and at the Golden Globes and subsequent afterparties, it does not seem like she has any plans to reenter the public eye. In 2018, Tonya is just doing Tonya.