Harding Skates Back Into Spotlight

Disgraced Olympian not party to Kerrigan mess, says tell-all book
By Kate Seamons,  Newser Staff
Posted May 23, 2008 5:20 PM CDT
Harding Skates Back Into Spotlight
U.S. figure skaters Tonya Harding, left, and Nancy Kerrigan pose in this Jan.. 9, 1994 file photo during U.S. Figure Skating Championships at Joe Louis arena in Detroit.   (AP Photo/Merline Summers, file)

What read like a closed book in 1994 is falling open in a Tonya Harding tell-all, reports Newsweek in an interview with the fallen figure skater. The Tonya Tapes argues that Harding wasn't just uninvolved in Nancy Kerrigan's knee-whacking—she planned to rat out her ex-husband to the FBI until he intervened, backed by two enforcers and a gun.

The book, a collection of interviews compiled by Lynda Prouse, outlines years of abuse. "This is not a skating book. It's a woman's book," says the ex-champ's manager, though "financial reasons" fuel such releases, says gold medalist Brian Boitano. Still, Harding calls her intentions altruistic: She hopes to "help just one person realize it's not shameful to ask for help." (More Tonya Harding stories.)

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