‘I was the victim, that’s it’: Nancy Kerrigan’s angry response to I, Tonya

THERE may be plenty of buzz around Margot Robbie’s new movie, but one person who doesn’t want to see it: Nancy Kerrigan, who’s brutal attack makes up the centrepiece.

THERE’S plenty of buzz around the new Margot Robbie-led biopic I, Tonya, but there’s at least one person who has no interest in seeing it: Nancy Kerrigan, whose brutal attack at the hands of her ice-skating rival’s ex-partner makes up the centrepiece of the story.

When asked about whether she’d seen the new movie, which tells the tale from Tonya Harding’s perspective, Kerrigan didn’t mince words.

“I’ve been busy. I was at the national [figure skating] championships this week so I didn’t watch the Golden Globes. I haven’t seen the movie. I’m just busy living my life,” she told the Boston Globe. “I was the victim. Like, that’s my role in this whole thing. That’s it.”

Harding and Kerrigan were fierce rivals. Source: AP Photo/Phil Sandlin

When asked if she was bothered by the film’s portrayal of Harding as a victim, Kerrigan reportedly sighed.

“At this point, it’s so much easier and better to just be … it’s not really part of my life,” she said.

The biopic presents Harding not as the villain in the infamous Kerrigan kneecapping attack, but instead as the victim of an abusive mother and husband, Jeff Gillooly, whom the film blames entirely for the attack.

Harding has accompanied Robbie on red carpets and to this year’s Golden Globes, as some seem to be embracing the movie’s version as fact.

“I knew that something was up,” Harding told ABC News earlier this month of Gillooly’s alleged plan to whack Kerrigan out of the competition.

“I did, however, overhear them talking about stuff, where, ‘Well, maybe we should take somebody out so we can make sure she gets on the team.’ I go, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’”

Another ice-skating icon unimpressed with the movie is former Olympian Johnny Weir, who took to Twitter this week to express his disgust at what he perceived as glorification of Harding and a mockery of Kerrigan’s suffering.

“I am so over the glamorisation of a villain simply because she was born on the ‘wrong side of the tracks,’” he snapped. “While her upbringing may have been tragic, athletes come from all walks of life and succeed based on merit, not assault. I won’t applaud her and I stand for Nancy.”

This story originally appeared in the New York Post and is republished here with permission.

Originally published as ‘I was the victim, that’s it’: Nancy Kerrigan’s angry response to I, Tonya