Have you ever experienced a moment where everything around you was falling apart yet you had to compose yourself? Or where someone underestimated you and said you weren’t good enough? Or where the truth wasn’t good enough for anyone, so it never found its way out?
Well, you’re not alone, Tonya Harding has had too many of those moments and feelings. Tonya Harding is a retired competitive figure skater, who was rising amongst the ranks at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships in the ’80s. Tonya’s abusive mother enrolled her into ice skating lessons at age 4. Harding even dropped out of high school to fully devote her time for the sport. The abuse increased and continued with her ex-husband.
Despite the multi-sided abuse, her talent was breaking through. She is a two-time Skate America Champion and a two-time Olympian. In 1991, she became the first American woman to land a triple axel in competition.
“I, Tonya” is a movie that was released in December 8, 2017. It tells the story of Tonya Harding and her figure skating career which crashes down when her ex-husband intervenes and conspires to injure Nancy Kerrigan, a fellow Olympic athlete, to force her to withdraw.
Tonya Harding is framed for the attack, even though she only knew about the attack after it had happened. For the rest of her life, she is associated with one of the most famous scandals in the history of sports. Harding was stripped of her 1994 title and was banned for life from figure skating, the one and only thing she knew in addition to enduring abuse.
In the movie “I, Tonya”, Margot Robbie plays the role of Tonya Harding. She says “I mean, I’m not some monster. I’m trying to do my best. It’s like you’re giving me a life sentence if you do that, you can’t do that.”
It is important to realize, that Tonya Harding, is a human being just like us. Sometimes, celebrities have to live their lives in front of the entire world to view and judge them, based on facts that may not even be true. The media has its own way of portraying things and twisting stories around, to satisfy the audience and to attract more views.
People don’t seem to like the truth, because sometimes it’s just not as amusing as rumours and false accusations can be, right?