Tonya Harding - Later Celebrity

Later Celebrity

Harding entered the celebrity sex tape world when an explicit "Wedding Video" showed her having sex with her ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly. Gillooly had sold the tape to a tabloid TV show after being implicated as a conspirator in the Kerrigan attack. Stills from the tape were published by Penthouse in September 1994 and the tape itself was released at about the same time. Harding tried to distance herself from it.

She appeared on a USA Pro Wrestling show in 1994 as the manager for wrestler Art Barr.

A one-off promotional musical event was unsuccessful when she and her band, the Golden Blades, were booed off the stage in their only performance, in 1995 in Portland, Oregon.

She had a part in a 1996 crime-film entitled Breakaway, playing the girlfriend of a criminal.

In late 1996 she used mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to help revive an 81-year-old woman, Alice Olson, who collapsed at a bar in Portland, Oregon while playing video poker. (Olson died at age 90 in 2005.)

In March 2008 she became a regular commentator for TruTV's The Smoking Gun Presents: World's Dumbest....

Harding had a number of minor run-ins with the law following her involvement with the Kerrigan attack. Some of the incidents that have been reported in the press include the following:

• On May 25, 1995, it was reported that she claimed she was being stalked by someone driving a white Lincoln Town Car, resulting in a car chase involving her, her ex-husband Gillooly, and the police.
• On February 12, 1997, Harding claimed that she was abducted at knife-point outside her home by a bushy-haired man who forced her to drive to a rural area, where she rammed her truck into a tree and escaped by running into the woods. Police found no evidence of an abduction. This alleged incident happened on the opening weekend of the 1997 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.
• On October 16, 1997, she reported that her truck had been stolen from a shopping mall parking lot.
• On January 6, 2000, Harding was in the news again after she lost control of her truck on an icy road and landed in a ditch. Her then boyfriend, Darren Silver, allegedly made threats against a press photographer.
• On February 24, 2000, Harding was ordered by a Clark County judge to avoid alcohol and her former boyfriend, Darren Silver, after being booked on fourth-degree Domestic Violence assault charges for punching and throwing a hubcap at him at their Camas, Washington residence. She was also sentenced to 3 days in jail and 10 days of community service on a work crew. Shortly before this Harding was attempting to make a comeback as a professional skater, but the hubcap incident effectively ended her return to skating.
• On April 20, 2002, she was involved in another accident with her truck. She was cited for drunk driving and a violation of her probation agreement from her 2000 conviction.
• On October 23, 2005, Harding, apparently under the influence of alcohol again, was involved in a fight at her home in Vancouver, Washington with Christopher Nolan, a man she described as her boyfriend. Initially, she made a 911 call claiming to have been assaulted in her home by two masked men. For his part, Nolan claimed that she attacked him after having too much to drink. In the end, he was charged with assault and ordered to stay away from her and to avoid alcohol.
• On March 11, 2007, the Clark County sheriff's office responded to two calls related to her. The first call was from Harding, at 5 a.m. She told the officer who responded that she had observed five armed intruders trying to steal her vehicle and hide rifles on her property. The responding officer's report described her as "agitated" and her story as "very implausible," and recorded her frustration that others could not see the people she saw. He could find no evidence to back up her claims. The second call, four hours later, at 9 a.m., was from a friend who had agreed to let her visit. Her host told police that although she was not violent, she was "tweaking out, seeing animals," and she was worried about her children's safety. She requested police return her to her home. Police reported that the officer who returned to her home inspected her house, to reassure her, and advised her to seek medical help. Linda Lewis, her longtime agent, attributed her behavior to a bad reaction to legitimate prescription drugs.