Last Dance director dishes on Dennis Rodman’s weird behaviour

Dennis Rodman’s interview for The Last Dance featured bizarre requests and weird references to Kim Jong-un, director Jason Hehir has revealed.

Dennis Rodman still plays by a different set of rules.

The eccentric NBA Hall of Famer, who was recently revealed to have been granted a mid-season holiday to Las Vegas with then-girlfriend Carmen Electra as the Chicago Bulls chased their third straight championship in 1998, seemed content to let his contemporaries tell his stories in The Last Dance documentary, according to director Jason Hehir.

The series has been a massive hit as sports fans around the world pass the time in quarantine by watching previously unseen footage and interviews as Michael Jordan led the Bulls to their sixth championship of the decade.

After showing up two hours late for his interview with Hehir, Rodman only agreed to talk for 10 minutes. But the fulfilment of a random request from Rodman then gave the docu-series everything it hoped.

“So he sits down, I’m just kind of shooting the s**t with him, and he says, ‘I need a tuna sub from Subway and some camomile tea,’” Hehir said on ESPN’s Jalen & Jacoby show.

“It was like (comedian Dave) Chappelle sending the guys for a sugar cookie in Queens. ‘Unless you pass this test, you cannot do this interview’.

“So we got him the tuna sub, we got him the camomile tea, and he sat down for three hours.”

The defensive beast still presented numerous challenges even as he fronted the camera. Hehir says that Rodman constantly had to be reminded about the subject being discussed and repeatedly veered into praise of his good friend, North Korea dictator Kim Jong-un.

“Interviewing Dennis Rodman is like trying to interview a feral cat,” Hehir said. “He’s not looking in the same place, he’s got those big shades on.

“Every other sentence was going back to Kim Jong-un and how he was gonna be in the history books.”

Rodman and Kim Jong-un have formed an unlikely friendship.

Kim Jong-un has been making headlines recently as rumours abound about the North Korean leader’s health.

Ever since a South Korean report last month that Kim had to undergo heart surgery - followed by his conspicuous absence from some key events - Korea watchers have wondered about his fate, speculating he may be sick or even dead.

North Korean state media carried comments from Kim last weekend in which he expressed his appreciation to workers who had built houses in the northern city of Samjiyon, according to the South Korean news agency Yonhap. But Yonhap also noted the North Korean report did not disclose Kim’s location or include any images.

Rodman and Kim have formed an unlikely friendship, the NBA icon even visiting North Korea on several occasions to meet with the country’s dictator.

Rodman has described Kim as “a big kid” who just wants to have fun and on a trip to North Korea in 2017, the former Bulls star helped secure the release of American prisoner Otto Warmbier.

This article first appeared on the New York Post and was reproduced with permission

Originally published as Last Dance director dishes on Dennis Rodman’s weird behaviour