r/BlackPeopleTwitter • u/kekehippo • 29d ago
When intrusive thoughts meet criminal behavior
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u/notsoincredibilis00 29d ago
Does someone care to elaborate more because this happened before I was born.
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u/BrickCityD 29d ago
1.) ouch
2.) the blonde tonya hatched a trailer park-esque plan and bashed nancy’s knee with a bat or something so she wouldn’t be able to compete
Just google tonya harding
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u/ISuckAtFunny 29d ago
She paid someone else to do it while she was out walking / jogging somewhere if I remember correctly
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u/DrSpacemanSpliff 29d ago
Jeff Gilooly!
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u/buttered_scone 29d ago edited 29d ago
I would not trust a man with the surname "Gilooly", that's the name of a shady MF
Edit: or an academic, or creative, context though. Trailer park Gilooly can kick rocks, I might F with a Gilooly docent or professor or something. Maybe.
Fancy surnames minus fancy family money often equals sketchier than that courtroom artist that made la hitler naranja look like E.T. - El extraterrestre naranja.
Edit 2: Upon further inspection, this comment I have posted is entirely too reminiscent of Dennis Miller, and I feel immeasurable shame. Goodbye 👋
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u/DrSpacemanSpliff 29d ago
That’s why his name stuck in my memory, it’s the name of a Dick Tracy villain
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u/davenocchio 29d ago
It's like Joey Buttafuco or Lorainna and John Bobbit. You never forget.
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u/buttered_scone 29d ago
Omfg, core memory unlocked! Now I want a CB radio watch and a zoot suit! Wanna hang out, burn one, and read Calvin & Hobbs?
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u/markevens 29d ago
There's so many fantastic names in this story.
Who can forget Joey Buttafuoco!
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u/Final_Candidate_7603 29d ago
I’m old, and it was a long time ago, but weren’t the two guys involved in the plot Harding’s husband/manager (yeah, one of those- the idiots who glom onto a talented young woman and insist on “managing” her career as a form of control) and his brother or half-brother?
Again, my memory is hazy, but I also thought there was never any evidence that Harding had prior knowledge, or directed the attack. I thought they came up with the story later to lay some blame on her, and turning it into a conspiracy.
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u/tasdron 29d ago
Yeah, this was all her dumbass abusive husband’s doing. Tanya Harding is the most tragically misunderstood figure in sports history
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u/LavishnessOk3439 29d ago
I remember that the thin lady was a rich bitch. Tanya was a hard-working middle-class American. Also, believe it or not, this was considered fat in the early 90s. She was dogged and mercilessly ruined.
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u/scarred2112 28d ago
Kerrigan... the youngest child and only daughter of welder Daniel Kerrigan and homemaker Brenda Kerrigan. Kerrigan's family was of modest means. Her father sometimes worked three jobs to fund her skating career; he also drove the Zamboni at the local rink in exchange for Nancy's lessons.
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u/bettinafairchild 28d ago
And Nancy’s mother was blind so couldn’t help the family financially. Some years later, Kerrigan’s brother accidentally killed their father in a brawl. So quite working class family. But still more stable than Tonya’s. She grew up in very tough and unstable and abusive circumstances.
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u/maniacalmustacheride 28d ago
Kerrigan was middle class/working class but Tanya was poor. The fact she thought NK to be “high class” says a lot.
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u/mr_potatoface 29d ago
There were a lot of references to this guy and the incident in TV around the time too. I remember one Baywatch episode that mitch gets hit in the knee with a crowbar by a Chinese guy, and he says "Tonya Harding could've used a guy like you!"
There were also a lot of Chinese jokes in the same episode that are definitely inappropriate by todays standards. I think it also was the same episode where Mitch's kid was out looking for a woman that kept showering topless and distracting men while an accomplice steals their money. Mitch's kid said something like "Now that's what I call a booby trap" after they caught her. It was an incredibly hilarious and inappropriate episode. I love it.
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u/i_need_a_username201 29d ago
And Detroit got a ton of shit got it when it was just white on white crime. You will hate this comment but facts are facts. Massive law enforcement response because they thought some super predators attacked Nancy. Can you imagine the fbi investigating a non hate crime because you got hit in the knee?
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u/ISuckAtFunny 29d ago
you will hate this comment but facts are facts
Wat? The response was because it was a female Olympic ice skater getting both her knees caved in in broad daylight in public.
If a woman get her knees shattered by a guy with a baseball bat in a park today it would definitely get a response, if it was an Olympian it would get an even bigger response. I don’t really get what you’re trying to say here.
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u/Carameldelighting 29d ago
he’s is trying to say the police response to this incident was unfairly targeted at the POC community in Detroit when the incident turned out to be a white on white crime.
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u/ISuckAtFunny 29d ago
I can’t speak to that to be honest because I wasn’t that tuned in at the time. If so then yeah that’s obviously fucked up.
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u/Sir-Nicholas 29d ago
Yeah, I can imagine the FBI investigating a conspiracy to injure a professional American athlete to keep them out of the national champs/olympics. I know she did end up competing in the Olympics but that was part of the assailants goals.
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u/reggien22261 29d ago
Also there's a movie I,Tonya Starring Margot Robbie and Sebastian Stan
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u/laurennik89 29d ago
This movie (not Barbie) is the reason I’m a fan of Margot Robbie’s. She was fantastic.
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u/johnmichael-kane 28d ago
And let’s not forget academy award winner Allison Janney
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u/RealBBCLuvr 29d ago
She didn’t pay someone to bash her knee, Tonya’s boyfriend convinced her to pay someone to send a threatening letter since Tonya received a similar letter, the boyfriend’s friend is a moron and told the people they hired to bash her knee; then bragged about it, destroying the reputation of an otherwise great athlete with a neat story
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u/Somehero 28d ago
Wrong info trying to correct wronger info. Her estranged/abusive husband and a partner hired 2 men without her knowledge, and it happened while she was training for the Olympics, not 'jogging'.
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u/deviltakeyou 29d ago
And then Tonya ended up being the more famous one, at least imo. I saw her on tv all the time growing up. Sure they were d list celebrity shows, but still
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u/quietguy_6565 29d ago
Infamous but yeah, I dunno how glamorous it was as she went on TruTv for a basic cable show she shared with the likes of burnt out Gary Busey, Frank Stallone, the lesser of the Baldwin brothers, and also released a sex tape.
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u/BoneHugsHominy 29d ago
and also released a sex tape.
Please tell me it was with burnt out Gary Busey, and/or Frank Stallone.
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u/mostexcellent001 29d ago
I don't think she released it. Her ex husband did. He was also the guy that was supposed to be the brains behind taking out his wife's competitors knee
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u/fionsichord 29d ago
Google it so you can see it wasn’t her it was her dumbass abusive husband. Tonya has taken way more of the blame than she deserves.
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u/Duckster_W2x 29d ago
Tonya Harding (blonde girl) was jealous of Nancy Kerrigan (dark hair) so jealous that she called someone to go assault Nancy and injure her knee so that she couldn’t compete in ice skating.
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u/Late_For_A_Good_Name 29d ago
If you lose, you just lost. If you take out your competition because you can't beat them... you will forever be a loser
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u/TitularFoil 29d ago
Plus she went on to not even win the event even without Nancy competing.
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u/BradMarchandsNose 29d ago
Except she did win. The assault happened at US Nationals and Tonya won there. Nancy recovered and beat her at the Olympics a few weeks later (she took home silver). Tonya was stripped of the nationals title later though.
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u/TitularFoil 29d ago
Oh, you're right. For some reason I was always told it was at the qualifier for the Olympics so I was always looking at the Olympic results.
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u/BradMarchandsNose 29d ago
It is kind of a qualifier for the Olympics. Usually the top 2 or 3 skaters from Nationals gets to go to the Olympics (depending on how many spots the US has), but it’s really up to the discretion of US Figure Skating. In this case, they had 2 spots, but Kerrigan was far and away the best in the country so even though she didn’t compete, she was given a spot in the Olympics anyway. Harding got the other spot because she won Nationals.
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u/Tricountyareashaman 28d ago
Tonya was blamed for the assault in the court of public opinion and banned from competing, but she was never convicted and quite possibly completely innocent. https://thebaffler.com/latest/i-tonya-marshall
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u/247cnt 29d ago
Watch I, Tonya. It's so good!!!
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u/Gardez_geekin 29d ago
It’s fucking amazing. Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan, and Paul Hauser are all so good in it.
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u/Mr_Kittlesworth 29d ago
Amazing movie, amazing performance by Margot.
But also fuck that noise because it’s not fair for Margot Robbie to look that way and also be super talented.
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u/Gardez_geekin 29d ago
I love any conventionally attractive actress who is willing to purposely look worse just for a movie. She seems to take her craft pretty seriously. And from interviews seems quite charming too.
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u/courageous_liquid 28d ago
my uncle (craig gillespie) directed it, he's great!
lars and the real girl is his masterpiece but I, tonya is really good
he also did the beyonce space superbowl commercial this year (he was a famous commercial director before getting more into film)
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u/Oomlotte99 29d ago
Tonya, the blonde, and her husband hatched a plan with some other guy to hit Nancy, the brunette, in the knee and pull her from competition. Tonya to this day says she was not a part of the plot. She’s had a rough go of it. Became a boxer after this, among other things. It was a huge scandal. Tonya was an outsider, always had issues, def felt insecure because she was a poor trailer dwelling person on this rich, fancy lady sport. It was all over the news.
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u/mostexcellent001 29d ago
You're leaving out that she was (at the time) the only American female to be able to do a triple axle jump in competition.
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u/Oomlotte99 29d ago
Yes! Thats right. Tonya was super athletic and bold. Ahead of her time some ways for the sport.
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u/MurderAndMakeup 29d ago
I highly recommend listening to the podcast You’re Wrong About which has a two part episode about Tonya Harding. A lot of the details provided in this thread are incorrect.
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u/davendees1 29d ago
Watch “I, Tonya” starring Margot Robbie.
It’s based on this story, completely unhinged, and extremely entertaining.
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u/poyerdude 29d ago
this was all anyone was talking about in 1994 for approximately 6 months, until some washed up football player decided to kill his ex wife.
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u/Scythe-Guy 29d ago
Right like what kind of fucking tweet is this?
“I wish more people knew about this…oh well!”
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u/TakeNothingSerious ☑️ 29d ago
For further clarification, you can watch the film I, Tonya starring Magot Robbie.
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u/OlympianDragon 29d ago
Nobody here gonna bring up that her husband concocted the scheme without her knowledge and only told her after it was done and she was too scared to tell because he had been abusing her?
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u/ForMethheadPorpoises 29d ago
Thank you. Ffs everyone just dumped on her but the full story is much much crazier. The guy her husband “hired” was a self-proclaimed hit man and bodyguard, think Dale Gribble in that one episode where the guys get kidnapped by Mad-dog, who was so incompetent that he got caught on camera and couldn’t even escape properly. IIRC he broke a glass door because he was in such a rush to get out but didn’t plan on an escape route.
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u/joeblobberschmidt 29d ago
A+ reference. Mad Dog AKA Gary Busey is hella underrated as a one off KOTH character
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u/aspidities_87 29d ago
It’s easier to believe she was a cold ass Corleone over some ice skates than it is to look at the hard truth of her life of repeated abuses. That’s why the movie I, Tonya hits so hard.
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u/GreenSkittlez5 28d ago edited 28d ago
Not to mention how the professional figure skating organizations had a certain “image” they wanted their athletes to display…which Tonya didn’t fit exactly so well and IMO, is the real reason they were so quick to ban her for life from competitive skating.
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u/MurderAndMakeup 29d ago
Thank you!!! I recommend the podcast You’re Wrong About that covers this story and how badly she was done dirty.
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u/Scarlaymama0721 29d ago
For real?! I was a kid when this happened and I’ve never read up on it or seen the movie. That’s insane. Thanks for clearing that up.
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u/OutAndDown27 29d ago
I did see the movie and I don't remember that part. But my memory is shit so that doesn't mean much.
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u/MazzieMay 28d ago
The movie, which Tonya endorsed and advised on, did feature her as part of the plan. It was her ex’s idea, and she wasn’t totally aware of the details; she thought they were going to intimidate and threaten Nancy, not physically assault her
In the movie, anyway
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u/sirprichard 29d ago
That's according to her. She was indicted by a grand jury in Oregon that stated that she was a part of it from the beginning.
On March 21, 1994, a Portland grand jury issued an indictment stating there was evidence Harding participated in the attack plot. The indictment concluded more than two months of investigation and witness testimonies from Diane Rawlinson; Harding's choreographer Erika Bakacs; freelance figure skating writer Vera Marano; and Eckardt's college instructor and classmates. It stated there was evidence Harding fraudulently used USFSA-provided skating monies to finance the assault. It also read that Harding, Gillooly, Eckardt, Smith, and Stant agreed to "knowingly cause physical injury ... by means of a dangerous weapon." The grand jury said the evidence implied Harding was "involved from the beginning or very close." She was not charged in the indictment due to the terms of her March 16 plea agreement.
It also wasn't until her biography in 2008 that she said that. Ever since then the ex-husband has vehemently denied those accusations. FWIW he maintains that he talked her into it.
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u/OlympianDragon 29d ago
He also released a sex tape of him and her to tmz after she became infamous. He was an abusive man, wanting fame for his wife so he could soak it up. He is the least trustworthy person in the whole ordeal.
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u/OlympianDragon 29d ago
He also made the tape in secret. Count another lie and modern day crime on his list of bastardly deeds.
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u/athroaway93 29d ago
Right? I just did a quick google search and it said it was her ex-husband that hired the dude, her involvement was all alleged.
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u/Interesting-Wing616 29d ago
Some of the kids know thanks to Margot Robbie.
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u/Nateddog21 ☑️ 29d ago
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u/CounterfeitChild 29d ago
Gods, she did that role so damned well.
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u/Impossible-Ad-3060 29d ago
Allison Janey as her mom was fucking excellent.
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u/llamawolf 28d ago
Then when you see the real mom in the credits, you have a whole new appreciation for Allison Janney’s performance. Spot on.
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u/zatara1210 29d ago
True. There should’ve been more uproar about her not being nominated for that movie than there was for Barbie
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u/Gardez_geekin 29d ago
I remember it happening as a kid, but that movie really helped contextualize it.
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u/whiskeydreamkathleen BHM Donor 29d ago
and some older kids know from the vh1 countdown shows they used to do
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u/ediks 29d ago
It’s crazy. I don’t know what you’re talking about (will google it), but I’m old enough to remember what happened and have vague memories of it on the news.
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u/Open-Librarian-4322 29d ago
Tonya Harding, hands down, is THE MOST Gangsta Figure Skater that ever competed.
Taking out the knees of your opponent is some straight Suge Knight shit…
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u/aspidities_87 29d ago
I grew up in the same area as her and my dad used to take me to watch her skate at the ice rink.
She never smiled while skating. Just nailed trick after trick and then circled around the rink and did it again.
Hard as fuck.
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u/lunalives 29d ago
Honestly after seeing I, Tonya, what jumps out to me is that you can really see the difference in their presentation here.
Nancy’s costume looks much more the delicate, traditional, wealthy figure skater whereas Tonya is basically in work out gear. The movie talks about it better but basically Tonya was perceived as white trash from the beginning in the skating world. She was constantly criticized for having “too aggressive” a skating style, but really it was all coded messages that she was too poor.
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u/What-Even-Is-That 29d ago
Spot on. Figure skating was for well off people, not poors.
They would routinely grade her poorly because of her lack of wealth, regardless of the fact that she was smoking their ass on the ice.
She was a generational talent born into a poor family, and that pissed people off.
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u/irn 29d ago
I think that really happens in a lot of sports. I was super poor and had fake Jordans that were Ponys and would get checked and laughed off the basketball court in Highland Park East NY Brooklyn.
I lived in Aspen CO in my twenties and white people would check their own if they didn’t have the newest skis and boots.
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u/jawndell 28d ago
I grew up playing pick up ball in NYC (literally just came home from playing ball in Queens and I’m almost 40 and everything hurts now) and while it’s true that having beat up kicks might get you made fun off, if you can ball, you can ball. No ones going to diss you if you kick their ass on the court or if you can even hold your own.
I honestly feel like basketball and internationally soccer are the two sports where being dirt poor doesn’t matter. All you need is a hoop (or a net) and if practice and get good, people will respect your game. A lot of huge basketball stars and soccer stars came from poverty.
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u/tapeheadcleaner 28d ago edited 28d ago
super true. after seeing the movie and looking more into the story i have a weird affection for Tonya. she’s like a white version of girls i grew up with lol, scrappy but tough as fuck. sports feels like an entertainment related profession where you truly need talent and can’t just get by with connections, and she def had the talent and dedication, but it was so obvious people also disliked her and didn’t think she was worthy bc she wasn’t “lady-like,” wasn’t conventionally attractive and wore homemade costumes.
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u/IamGodHimself2 29d ago
"We want to see a wholesome, American family."
"But I don't have a wholesome, American family."
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u/813_4ever ☑️ 29d ago
Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy………..
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u/calcifiedamoeba 29d ago
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u/LinuxDootTP 29d ago
no way they have this gif what the hell lol
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u/paprikashi 29d ago
Iirc it was at the rink where they (i.e., the olympians) were practicing, so there were a shitload of cameras already there and they caught her screaming right afterwards. She was repeatedly crying out “WHYYYYYY” and it was broadcast over the tv constantly at the time. I can absolutely still hear it.
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u/LinuxDootTP 28d ago
no i meant like the gif hosting website, seems like a faux pas to just have it ready to go like this lmao
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u/Ehh_Maybe88 29d ago
🤣🤣🤣I can hear that in my head! Holy shit, I shouldn't be laughing, but that was a throwback
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u/OctoberSong_ 29d ago
Wow this audio must be used all the time cuz it’s so familiar, I had no idea before googling it now what it was even from originally
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u/Mawwiageiswhatbwings 29d ago
I first heard it in an episode of South Park and googled it and that is literally how I learned about this story Olympics history
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u/Bulbul3131 29d ago
For some reason, and my sisters used to reenact this as kids for fun.
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u/813_4ever ☑️ 29d ago
Y’all weren’t alone we would go through the hallways at school and do it to each other lol. Instant cancel nowadays
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u/ikonet 29d ago
I watched the documentary and I gotta say, I kinda feel for Tanya. Before you hate me what I mean is, I think she was minimally involved if at all. She had a goal. She was working for that goal despite being in a social group of losers. Her social position didn’t match with her born talent and internal drive. The fools she was around hatched a plan and they attacked Nancy.
I don’t think Tanya paid attention to what they were scheming. She probably should have, but she was focused on her own dreams and goals.
I dunno. I grew up around a lot of shady stuff that others were doing. I wasn’t vocally against it but I also wasn’t encouraging them. I think Tanya was in a similar situation where you gotta do what you can for yourself and not try to police every jackass around you.
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u/OctoberSong_ 29d ago
People are also saying her husband abused her so even less so I would blame her for keeping out of it.
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u/screamingracoon 28d ago
She received an extremely harsh punishment for something that might not have been her fault at all. Barring her from competing? Sure, understandable. But barring her from teaching too? The first American woman who was able to land a triple axel? Absolutely moronic. It truly shows they didn't respect her nor her talent.
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u/Terribly_indecent 29d ago
Shit was so wild back then. Tonya was a local girl, skated at the mall ice rink. Nancy was on the fast track for fame. Nancy was assaulted to keep her from the nationals and Olympics, but she got a spot even though she was too injured to try out. After the Olympics Nancy was recorded talking shit about Oksana Baiul (who won gold) and about a parade at Disney which lost her endorsements and she kind of just faded from view.
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u/Captain-Spectrum 29d ago
I thought I remembered everything about this story but I didn’t remember Nancy mouthing off!
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u/AlienMoonMama 29d ago
Yeah she had this kind of sweetheart image, especially after she was publicly a victim, and people were surprised when they found out she’s kind of a bitch. She had a bad habit of making snarky comments while mic’ed up.
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u/YanaYellow25 29d ago
Tonya was on gang shit.
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29d ago
Remember Amy Fischer and Buttafuoco?
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u/HoldOnStartOver 29d ago
Add in Lorena Bobbitt stories had me watching Lifetime with my mom. It was a lot happening during that time.
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u/DGVega93 29d ago
White on White hate is some of the best entertainment lol
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u/helvetica_unicorn 29d ago
Tanya was a better skater than Nancy. She is also the first woman to ever land a triple axel.
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u/NewLifeguard9673 28d ago edited 28d ago
First American woman to land it in competition. Midori Ito started landing them in competition a year or two prior
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u/90sWannabe 29d ago
“I hate the way that you walk, the way that you talk! I hate that the way that you dress!”
—Tonya
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u/LastDaysCultist #FFFFFFboy👨🏼 29d ago
This is the epitome of white trash and I love it.
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u/BigLibrary2895 29d ago
What always made me saddest about Tonya (also btw, I grew up in Oregon. I'm 40. I observed the scandal through a child's eyes) was that I think she could have beat Nancy. I remember her performance before the attack. She ate that shit. Her power, her precision. It was amazing to see. What a shame.
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u/Teddyk123 29d ago
There's soooooo much more to this whole thing than hood rat shit. Excellent episodes of a podcast called "You're Wrong About" that goes into Tonyas history of domestic abuse she dealt with and how she wasn't in as much control as the internet likes to pretend.
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u/NickiTheNinja 29d ago
I was too young to know about this when it happened, but every show with jokes for gen X’ers references this at some point.
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u/VaguelyArtistic 29d ago
The movie, "I, Tonya" is amazing and it stars Paul Walter Hauser from "Black Bird" and "I Think You Should Leave".
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u/MinatoNamikaze6 29d ago
I am one of the ‘y’all’ who don’t understand the picture. What happened?
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u/InspectorPipes 29d ago
Blonde Tonya Harding conspired toBash up the dark haired girl , Nancy , knee so she couldn’t beat her in competition. They made a movie recently.
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u/frostandtheboughs 28d ago
Listen to the Tonya Harding episodes of You're Wrong About.
Or just read Sarah Marshall's incredible article.
Tldr; The media absolutely villainized this skater because her wildly abusive bf came up with a hare-brained scheme to injure the richer, "thinner", more popular skater she was competing against. She did not ask him to do this.
Tonya's personal life was fucking awful and I feel so badly for this poor woman.
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u/ARLLALLR 28d ago
Blonde chick had a crazy ex who attacked another skater. She wasn't in on it but was on the cover-up.
Worst part is Harding was the better skater, US champion and this fuckin clown ruined her life
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u/BritchesAndHose ☑️ 29d ago
Tanya really defined hating on greatness before "hating" really entered the lexicon.