The lineup for the next season of Dancing with the Stars has arrived, and Tonya Harding is on the roster — the year of Tonya Harding continues! Harding reentered the spotlight late last year when her biopic I, Tonya made waves. She attended the Golden Globes, appeared in a glossy spread in the New York Times magazine, and met Tommy Wiseau. Her year continues with DWTS, which will feature an all-athlete lineup this year. Other notable athlete additions this year are Adam Rippon, Mirai Nagasu, and legendary basketball player Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Harding will always be surrounded by a tinge of controversy, thanks to the media frenzy surrounding the 1994 attack on Nancy Kerrigan. She and Kerrigan were pitted against one another in the press, and, to this day, they're still seen as competitors. Kerrigan appeared on Dancing with the Stars in 2017. Speaking to E!, Harding said she was well aware that people would compare her and Kerrigan.
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"You know, I know that there's going to be comparisons, and that's perfectly fine," she said. She will be dancing with pro dancer Sasha Farber, whose wife Emma Slater is also competing. (Slater will be dancing with MLB player Johnny Damon.) Harding added, "I just want to go out and we will do the best that we can, and hopefully beat [Slater]. That's the important part, I guess." Always good to focus on the important competition, the wife of your partner.
If anything, Harding's history of scandal will help her in the competition. She's no stranger to criticism, after all. Farber told E!, "This competition is all about taking criticism and being the best person that you can possibly be... [Tonya's] been through that already. She's taken criticism, she's trained hard, she's given up on herself then got back up, she's done it all."
What doesn't kill you makes you an ideal candidate for Dancing with the Stars, I guess.
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