Who Really Attacked Nancy Kerrigan?! The Tonya Harding Story
32:59 Share

- Hey guys, and welcome back to my channel. So today I have a video for you guys on a, I guess you could call it like a sporting scandal.

It's a really interesting moment in history that I am really intrigued by, honestly, and have been for a while. I've been wanting to make a video on this since the movie "I, Tonya" came out about two years ago. So I wanted to go ahead and cover this story. I think you guys are gonna find this really interesting. Today we're going to be talking about the world of ice skating. And I know it doesn't sound super intriguing, but this story definitely is. And we are going to be talking about what led up to this moment right here.

Why? So this is Tanya Maxine Harding. She was born on November 12th, 1970 in Portland, Oregon. She grew up in the East Portland area and she was very young when she first got into ice skating. And the story kind of goes that her parents took her to a local mall and there was a little ice skating rink and Tanya, when she was only three years old, stepped out onto the ice skating rink and could skate pretty well right away.

and instantly fell in love with the sport, and the rest was history. And her parents, really her mom, wasted no time. She saw a lot of talent in Tanya early on, so she got her into a skating competition that year, when she was three, and she had already won an ice skating competition before she turned four years old. So this quickly became her life before she even really knew what was going on.

But as she grew up, Tanya didn't just have a love for figure skating. She had a love for competition. This girl was extremely driven, very, very tough.

very athletic. She was just into being active and she really called herself a tomboy. I don't really like the term tomboy. I think it's so stupid, but that's kind of what she was in addition to her ice skating, which is, you know, a very feminine and dainty sport. She was into hunting and drag racing and car mechanics as well.

But Tanya was different than other girls within the ice skating world. I mean, oftentimes people who are in ice skating have a decent amount of money. I'm not saying everyone who's an ice skater is rich by any means, but it is one of those sports that costs a lot of money to be a part of it. And your average family, a lot of the times will struggle to be a part of it if they can even afford it at all. Tanya's family barely got by.

They had really no extra money to spend on anything and every extra penny that either of her parents made went towards her ice skating career. So that's a lot of pressure on her. She didn't have the most ideal upbringing. She grew up in a trailer. She said she often found her parents stressing out over money. Her mom was working as a waitress and working pretty much all the time to keep her in the ice skating world.

and her dad was pretty unstable um he bounced around between jobs he went from being a truck driver to an apartment manager just things were never stable and secure for tanya growing up her father actually had various health problems which is the reason why he lost a lot of the jobs he struggled with his mental health from being physically sick i mean the two go hand in hand and so tanya's mom at times had to be the only one supporting the family and

And as a waitress, that was not easy. She had to pretty much bust her ass all the time. And Tanya's mom was really not a happy person. If you have seen the movie, I, Tanya, and Allison Janney's representation of her, so good, so good. It's very accurate. Her mom was brutal, very cold person, very hardened by life. And she by no means was a good mother to Tanya. She was actually a pretty terrible mother to her.

Even though Tanya was doing really well on the ice, like by age 10, she was considered a prodigy. You wouldn't really know that at home she was dealing with a lot of issues. It definitely wasn't taking a toll like on her ice skating. She was doing all these complex jumps and was just blowing people away with her talent. But at home, things were rough.

Her parents got divorced when she was only 15 years old and this was really tough on her. And when her parents were getting this divorce, her mom made it clear to Tanya and her dad that she wanted nothing to do with Tanya. She didn't even care about her and pretty much kicked her to the curb, was like, I don't want her, you can keep her.

And many people, including Tanya, of course, claim that her mother physically harmed her on many occasions, that she was very abused, especially when she was younger. A lot of moms even talked about seeing her beat Tanya with a hairbrush in the locker room area when they were at ice skating practice.

She's not a good mother. She hits me and she beats me. One time I spanked her with a hairbrush at a competition. Her mom was a major alcoholic. She would bring liquor literally in thermos to ice skating practice

and was constantly drunk. And the abuse has kind of been debated between Tanya and her mom, but I really believe Tanya. And Tanya said it was way worse than anyone can possibly understand. And at one point, Tanya claims that her mom even threw a steak knife at her and it landed in her right arm. She also really verbally abused her, told her she was worthless all the time, told her she was ugly, that she would never make it in life. Like just a terrible mom. - Always down on me.

either hitting me or vocally yelling and screaming. But like I said, everything was going really well for her in the ice skating world, even though her life was just turmoil at home. I think ice skating was something that she could escape to and somewhere that she could feel like she was accomplishing something and making something out of her life. And when she was pretty young, she was introduced to her coach, Diane Rawlinson. And Tanya really looked up to Diane in a lot of ways and

probably more as a motherly figure to her because her mom was so uninvolved. The only reason that her mom was even paying the bills for ice skating was because she thought it was like her and Tanya's only possible ticket out of the town. She saw the potential, she saw maybe she could win and she could do really well financially. And that's why she was supporting her, not because she was supporting her daughter's dreams. Like it was all about her in the end.

So I think Tanya really connected with Diane because Diane really saw so much potential in Tanya. I think she saw someone who was rougher around the edges and had a more difficult road ahead when it comes to figure skating that she really needed someone to guide her in this world where she just did not fit in. You're being a little bit too graceful in the beginning. It needs to be a little bit more upbeat and even the music's

And in the mid 80s, Tanya first started doing actual figure skating competitions, more serious ones. She placed sixth at the 1986 US Figure Skating Championships.

Fifth in 1987, 1988, and third in 1989. As she grew up, she decided that she definitely wanted to make figure skating her career in her life. So she ended up getting her GED and dropping out of high school in 1988. And she was just putting in mad hours, working super hard. She was determined to be one of America's best female ice skaters.

Now, one thing that would definitely get her to that position is if she was able to complete a triple axel, because at the time a triple axel had never been completed in a competition by a female from the United States. Now, Tanya was determined to be the one to do this. The triple axel is very, very hard to do.

I'm, definitely not an expert on this. I'm not a figure skater. I can barely stand up on ice skates So i'm gonna try to explain this the best that I personally can this jump is absolutely insane I'm sure there's more insane ones out there. Actually. I'm pretty sure there is but the triple axel is very hard to do and Basically, you have to jump off the ground with enough force on your foot facing up Your foot has to go forward

Then you have to jump into the air and spin three times. You have to get three spins in that jump. And then you have to come down and land on one foot with a ton of pressure because that motion is

Mean this is when a physics person would be nice to have around right but that motion is creating more force when she lands it ends up being hundreds of pounds of pressure on one foot after you land a triple axel you're on these little blades like on a

It just blows me away. You have to be so talented to do something like this. I think it's something you're like born with. It's looks so hard. But anyway, Tanya could do this. Like she was doing this all the time at their practices back at home and her team

felt like she could do it in a competition possibly. Maybe she could be the first one to actually land this jump in competition. Being in competition is so different than practicing. There's so much less pressure, you're not nervous. And as an ice skater, you have to think about your entire routine and maybe you don't wanna put something as risky as a triple axel in there because if you miss, then you're just screwed, you know? So it was like a gamble.

But her team decided let's have her do it. So in 1988, she was only 17 years old and it was her first Olympic tryouts. And in practices, she was really getting the axle down. She was almost able to land it several different times, but then she had one moment where she tripped kind of, and just kind of knocked her confidence down. And unfortunately she did not land it. And because of this, she ended up not making the Olympic

Olympic team. And you know, this wasn't the end of the world for her. She's still young, but something would happen in her life that really threw her off course big time and would probably be the biggest downfall she ever had. And that is when she got married extremely

Extremely young to a man named Jeff Galuli. He is a weird guy He's very sketchy cat and he basically picked her up by creeping on her from the side of the ice skating rink when she was practicing one day and she was only 15 years old at the time and he was the first guy to like pay her any attention and Was into her and she really really loved that attention and fell into a relationship with him very quickly and I think this is because she just was floundering in the world and

And this guy was telling her how pretty she was and he had a car and seemed somewhat stable and took care of her. And she liked this. And when she was very, very young, she ended up marrying him. Her family didn't really like this. - And after the wedding ceremony,

And they line up and everybody lines up to shake his hand and kiss Tanya and everything. And when I walked up to him, I shook his hand. I said, I still don't like you, but welcome to the family. So even though things were a little crazy for Tanya and she had just gotten married really young and this guy is a little sketch, I'll explain more. They definitely should not have gotten married. It threw Tanya's life off big time.

And so she was dealing with the stress from him but he was really pushing her to succeed because he saw the talent in her as well and He put a lot of pressure on her as well to practice a ton to work as hard as she could and she did and that finally paid off for her in 1991 it was the US Championships and everyone was really excited and nervous because Tanya was rumored to be doing the triple axel and if she lands it she would be the

first woman in America to be able to do this. So they start playing the music, she skates out and the time comes for the jump. And you can see her gearing up, getting that power. And that's one thing about Tanya, she was built differently from a lot of the other female ice skaters. You know, a lot of them are very slender and dainty and Tanya had really thick,

powerful thighs and legs and she definitely was a force to be reckoned with so she goes into the jump leaves on that first foot spins three times and lands it perfectly now the question is whether she will become the first american to attempt and complete a triple axel jump we will know that here whether she tries it or not

And her face at this moment is just priceless. She looks so overjoyed. This was a big moment for her. This was a huge goal that she wanted to complete and I think this was probably the best moment of Tanya Harding's entire life. You can just see the joy all over her face. And that was just like the best feeling I could ever have. I was so excited. I mean, I had tears coming down my face and everything. I...

I was crying because I was so happy that I actually did it. - A few months later in March of 1991, they were at the World Championships and she completed the triple axel again. She ended up getting second place behind Christy Yamaguchi and in front of Nancy Kerrigan.

Now, who is Nancy Kerrigan? Well, she was very much the opposite of Tanya. She had a pretty normal upbringing. Her family had more money. She was very beautiful and had the classic figure skater body. She was around the same age as Tanya and it was one of Tanya's biggest competitors.

biggest challenges she was someone who was really successful and a lot of people thought she was the one who could really beat Tonya Harding because Tonya was on the fast road to success now even though they were major competitors Tonya claims that her and Nancy were friends and she never thought anything bad about her but

But to this day, that's really not known. There's a lot of people out there that said they were like fighting, that they were enemies, that they didn't get along very well. But according to Tanya, they were friends. So who really knows? So in 1992, Tanya was training for the Olympics that would be held in Albertville, France. But during one of her practices, she had actually landed wrong and broke one of her skates. And she was kind of thrown off for days after this. And her coaches were starting to feel like,

maybe we shouldn't even have her attempt this jump because if she does it and she misses, it's going to really significantly impact her scoring. And this is the Olympics. It's a really big deal. They were very nervous about her being able to make this and they wanted her routine to at least be clean. If she couldn't make the axle, they thought maybe it was better to take it out. But Tanya decided to go for the jump anyway. And unfortunately she did not land it correctly. And it ended up getting her fourth place in the Olympics, which was a major bummer for her.

Tanya was heartbroken, but this didn't stop her from wanting to show everyone that she was the best. And she would actually have a second chance a lot sooner. I mean, with the Olympics, you normally have to wait every four years, but this was the time that the Olympics made the split into summer and winter. And so it was this one weird time where the Olympics were in 1992 and 1994 for winter. Tanya knew that she wanted to

redeem herself in the 1994 Olympics and went into full serious training mode. I mean, she'd been having so much chaos in her personal life between her husband and her family that she felt like she wasn't giving it her full attention that she could have. And that's why she wasn't able to land the triple axel in the first Olympics.

So this time was her chance. But during this time, her and Jeff's relationship was incredibly rocky. Tanya said that Jeff was very abusive to her and extremely controlling of everything she did. He would prevent her from going anywhere without his permission. He was constantly over her, like almost fathering her in a very abusive way. He would threaten to harm her or to harm himself in front of her. And that takes a

terrible mental toll on you. There was a time where he even fired a gun in her presence to threaten her, to scare her. And he was just terrible to her, which Tanya was sadly used to because she had been being abused her whole life. - Drug me all the way in to my apartment with a gun pointed at me. He beat me all the time.

Didn't matter any time. He said he loved me, so I stayed with him. My mom said she loved me, but she beat me. So I figured, you know, well, I guess it's okay. You know, I mean, maybe one of these days he'll grow out of it.

maybe he'll become proud of me. - So she ended up separating from him in 1993. Now this is so crazy, but when the United States Figure Skating Association found out that Tanya was wanting to get a divorce from Jeff, they decided to convince her otherwise. They believed it made her look really bad. You know, divorce doesn't look good on a woman

And the image when it comes to figure skating and the pressure on these women to be perfect and men, I'm sure is insane. I mean, for the United States Figure Skating Association to get involved in this personal drama between her and her husband is so weird for them to convince her not to do it. They said that it would hurt her image and

alter the outcome of the games now tanya says now that she thought at the time that this was just a load of bs but she's decided that nothing was more important to her than winning the olympics and if they really thought that this was going to affect her chances of winning she was going to go ahead and just be with jeff so she stayed with him anyways but the rumors were definitely going around with the public and other ice skaters that the relationship was rocky and that this was just a

thing, a facade to help her image. So now let's talk about that moment I showed at the beginning of the video. So it was January 6th, 1994. It was one day before the US Figure Skating Championship First Ladies Singles Competition. And Nancy Kerrigan was walking around the area of the ice skating rink getting ready to perform.

they had like practice sessions leading up to actual competition and nancy had just finished up with a practice session and was getting off the ice and walking to probably change out of her outfit nancy was walking behind this like curtain thing so no one else saw this actually and this is when a strange man came up to her with a baton and smashed her in the leg right above her right

Nancy started screaming immediately and tons of people rushed to her side. What happened? What happened? I don't know. It's a hard, hard black stick. Something really, really hot.

And you can tell in those moments that Nancy knew that this was going to affect her ice skating career. Now Tanya was actually sleeping when all of this happened and someone came and told her that Nancy Kerrigan's been struck in the leg. And they were actually really worried that someone was out like attacking ice skaters or she had no idea what it was. So she was nervous. She was nervous for her own safety and the other ice skaters, she said, but she went out there and competed and she did great.

And Nancy actually was unable to compete. A doctor looked at her leg and said there was no way that she could land. And whoever did this purposely did her right leg because that's the most crucial landing leg. And there was just no way that she could perform.

perform. So Tanya ended up winning the US title. And a lot of people thought, you know, if Nancy wasn't taken out of the competition, would Tanya have actually won? But after this, her and Nancy were selected for the US 1994 Olympic team. But after the competition happened,

there was just so much drama. There was so much chaos in the ice skating community and just around the world. People were really interested in this because why would someone do this to someone else? It seems like it would have to be someone who didn't want her to compete. And who would that person be? And many people were quickly coming to the conclusion of,

Maybe it was Tanya. Could she have something to do with this? So for the first couple days in the media, there was a lot of confusion. No one really knew who was responsible for these attacks and people were just concerned. And there was a lot of rumors about Tanya. However, on January 14th, a man named Shane Stant turned himself in to the Phoenix FBI.

And it turned out that Shane and his uncle, Derek Smith, were actually hired by Jeff Galluli and someone who claimed to be Tanya's bodyguard, Sean Eckhardt. And apparently they wanted Shane and his uncle Derek to attack Nancy so that she wouldn't be able to compete, raising the chances for Tanya to win.

So Shane, Derek and Sean were all arrested, but people immediately started wondering if Tanya had something to do with this. Did Jeff care enough to do this on his own or did Tanya encourage him to make this move because she was stressed out about possibly losing to Nancy?

The thing about Tanya is she will do anything to win and that is what's really known about her. She was extremely competitive and people thought maybe she would actually go this far. Of course, Tanya totally denies this and she does to this day.

But opinions are all over the place and I'd love to know what you think. But once word got out about this whole plot, this whole thing started getting a ton more attention and the media went absolutely crazy with it. There was a lot of talk about whether there would be any accountability for Tanya. Would she be pulled off the Olympic team for this? Would they somehow be able to prove that she was involved? There was so much media covering this. People were literally camping outside of her house, hiding behind her car.

Everyone was in on the latest drama between Nancy and Tanya. It got to the point where Tanya couldn't go anywhere or do anything without a camera crew following her.

And people were really torn in the public on whether or not Tanya would go to this extreme in order to win. This was a massive scandal for Olympics and the country hadn't really seen anything like this before, at least for females in ice skating. But despite the scandal, it was announced that Tanya still would be competing in the games. She made a public apology and that kind of had mixed reviews.

reviews. I mean people are very mixed when it comes to Tanya. Either people love her and they're on her side or they really think that she's this major liar and this fraud and that she did have something to do with this. But they went ahead and did an investigation to see if they could figure out what really happened. On January 18th 1994 Tanya volunteered to questioning by the district attorney and F

She was interviewed for over 10 hours and her full FBI transcript was released by the press on February 1st. And it was reported in the transcript that Tanya had changed her story during this interview. She had first spent hours trying to convince them that she had absolutely no involvement and didn't know about this at all.

all. But at some point the FBI told her whether they did or not, that they knew that she was lying. And that's when she finally admitted that Jeff really did plan this and that he was involved. She said, quote, I hope everyone understands. I'm telling on someone I really care about. I know now Jeff is involved. I'm sorry. Then on January 19th,

Jeff surrendered to the FBI but after all this even after she apologized to Nancy and stuff She still claimed in interviews that she really didn't know anything about it She just found out after that Jeff was involved, but she was not involved in the actual planning But they really believed Tanya that she had no involvement in it herself that she was not the one who orchestrated this and they really focused in on Jeff to this day We don't really know if Tanya was involved, you know, people are kind of all over the place with it So you'll definitely have to let me know what you think but

but Jeff was the one who was held responsible for it. Jeff's attorney negotiated a plea bargain in exchange for testimony regarding all involved parties involved in the attack. That following July, he was sentenced to two years in prison. Jeff and Sean also both pleaded guilty to racketeering and Shane and Derek pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit a second degree assault.

Eventually, Tanya did admit that she did kind of know about everything afterwards and she didn't report it as soon as she should. She found out things after it happened. I would like to begin by saying how sorry I am about what happened to Nancy Kerrigan. I had no prior knowledge of the planned assault. I am responsible, however, for failing to report things I learned about the assault.

when I returned home from nationals. - But she still says, "There's no way that I was involved in the planning. Like I didn't know it was gonna happen before it happened." But on February 5th of 1994, the US Figure Skating Association stated that they had reason to believe that Tanya had violated the sports code of ethics. And this was mainly because she had failed to report an assault and she had sworn that she did not know what was going on originally.

So she was formally charged with making false statements about her knowledge. And the panel also recommended that she have a disciplinary hearing. But by the time the 1994 Olympics came around, Nancy Kerrigan had made a full recovery and was ready to compete against Tanya. And during her first few performances, Tanya was not doing well. I think there was strife

so much pressure on her. It was all about Nancy versus Tanya, this big feud. The Olympics had a really high watch rating because people were so into the feud between them, but Tanya was not performing well. During one of her routines, one of her shoelaces broke and there's this famous picture of her putting her leg up, showing them, the judges, why she couldn't skate and she looked so upset. She was completely devastated and they did let her do a reskate, so she was able to like repeat this with a

thick skate but it didn't help she still did not perform well and she was not able to pull off a winning performance

Whenever a skater has a problem, whether it's a costume or a hook or a lace, they have to go right to the referee, report the problem, and then the referee makes a ruling. But interestingly enough, it didn't end up being Tanya or Nancy that won. It ended up being a skater from the Ukraine instead. Nancy got a silver medal, but Tanya ended up getting eighth place, and she was really devastated. But meanwhile, the panel is doing their own investigation back at home.

And they were examining a lot of different evidence, including the testimonies of Shane and Derek and Tanya and Jeff's phone records. And they also found these handwritten notes in a Portland restaurant trash bin on January 30th that apparently raised a lot of suspicion. They were able to track their credit cards and see that they purchased rental cars and stayed at hotels nearby where the attack happened.

So after that investigation concluded on March 16th, 1994, Tanya ended up pleading guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution as a Class C felony offense. Tanya was really upset and her and her lawyers worked to get her a plea bargain.

And at one point she was looking at five years in prison over this, but instead she ended up getting three years of probation, a $100,000 fine, which was a ton for her and 500 hours of community service, which is crazy. Now they still haven't been able to 100% prove that Tanya was involved. They've

pretty much connected the dots and a lot of people really think that she is guilty that she was involved but there's a lot of people out there who think that she was framed and the ice skating association just wanted to take her down so as a result of this tanya ended up losing her 1994 u.s championship title and this is crazy but she was banned from figure skating skating for the rest of her

her life. I mean, at least for the US Figure Skating Association. And this was just devastating to Tanya. I mean, I don't think she could believe that this was happening to her. Personally, I think this is really unfair. There have been way worse things that have been done in sports that have been let go, especially for men. It's interesting how hard they came down on a woman.

without being able to prove that she actually had involvement or knowledge, you know? It sounds like she knew to some extent, or she knew at some point and just didn't tell people. You can never get the full story with her. But I do not think Tanya Harding was the one who came up with the plan and...

planned it out and executed it. So to take the only sport that she had poured everything into, her true passion, away from her is just so awful, to be honest. On February 5th, 1998, Tanya and Nancy agreed to be interviewed together for the first time since the incident, which was four years prior at this point. - Nancy, I want to apologize again.

for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I say that from the bottom of my heart. I really do. Now things went pretty crazy for Tanya after all of this happened to her. On February 15th of 1994, a videotape clip of Tanya Topless was leaked. The New York Post reported that Jeff had given them the videotape for an undisclosed sum of money. So he was just a terrible person. Like he

pretty much derailed her whole life. Then on July 26, 1994, a magazine known as Penthouse ended up publishing some pictures from that tape. And this article also included pictures of Tanya and Jeff doing it. Sorry, YouTube's really rough to say anything on these days, but they were paid for this. They each negotiated a deal for it. Totally weird though. She was clearly spiraling. Losing ice skating was terrible for her. She

She was trying to figure out what she was gonna do next now that she couldn't do ice skating Where's her life gonna go? What is she gonna do? How's she gonna take care of herself? And since there was so much publicity over this there were a decent amount of people interested in her because the name Tonya Harding became a household name in 1994 Tonya was cast for a small action film called breakaway and the film was released in 1996 but didn't do so well and

She appeared on various TV shows, like commenting on stuff such as world's dumbest criminals. She did end up getting remarried to her second husband who was named Michael Smith, but only a year after they got married in 1995, they got divorced in 1996 as well.

So it's just rough for her for a while. Eventually she got in to boxing, celebrity boxing. She was actually featured on a show called Celebrity Boxing. And in 2002, she boxed against Paula Jones on the Fox Network Celebrity Boxing Show. And she ended up winning the fight. And this was a big moment on TV because she just absolutely went after her. And Tanya really is like, okay, I'm kind of good in this. And it makes me feel good to get my aggression out. So she went into boxing for a little while.

On February 22nd, 2003, she made her debut as a professional women's boxer, but there were rumors and Tanya pretty much confirmed this, that she did it because she really needed money. And this was an easy way to get that. And she wanted to do something physical with her career. She just didn't really care what. Now her boxing career was actually cut short because she had asthma. And for a lot of her life, Tanya was actually a chain smoker. So chain smoking and asthma just doesn't

go well together. So her very short lived boxing career ended with three wins and three losses. In April of 2018, Tanya competed on season 26 of Dancing with the Stars and she finished in third place overall. On June 23rd, 2010, Tanya married a man named Joseph Price.

who she met at a local restaurant when she was 39. And in 2011, she had her son who is named Gordon. It's her only son. She has done so many different jobs and things over her life. She has also worked as a welder, a painter at a metal fabrication company. And she even spent some time as a hardware salesperson for Sears. And her latest job as of 2017, she announced that she was currently working as a painter and deck builder.

So her life is pretty all over the place. She currently lives in Vancouver, Washington, and her most recent appearance was on the Ellen DeGeneres show. She stated that she was still active with ice skating and practices three times a week. She still loves the sport. In more recent interviews, she's admitted that, yes, she was...

aware that this was kind of a plan, but she never agreed to it. And that's where the story kind of stops. Nancy Kerrigan also went off and did some things in her life. She was on Dancing with the Stars as well. I'm not sure what it's like between them now. It'd be interesting to see them do an interview nowadays, especially after the movie and everything came out.

I think this story is so interesting. I think it's very strange the way they came down so hard on Tanya. I feel like it was kind of extreme, but a lot of people think that she absolutely deserved it and that she really was super involved.

That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then stay safe out there.