When I first came into the league I was one of those boys I was talking about, this herky-jerky kid running up and down the court, jumping around, just glad to be out there.
Isiah Thomas fixed that.
We were playing L.A., and I don’t remember exactly what I did wrong, but Isiah was pissed. There were like 18,000 people in the stands and they could tell something was going on, but couldn’t really see it. Isiah grabbed a handful of my jersey and then he hit me quick and hard in the chest with his fist—knocked the pure D shit out of me.
“This ain’t party time!” he said. “Goddamn it, you need to get your fucking shit together!”
That was the day I learned how to focus on the basketball court—this from a guy who was maybe six-foot-two and didn’t weigh shit. But he was a man passing down the word to a boy, y’know? He had gravity. Can you imagine somebody trying that shit today? David Stern would fine the hell out of their ass.
Stern couldn’t get away with the crap he gets away with now back when Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar ruled the league. All those guys were way bigger than David Stern, and he didn’t dare cross their asses. But he’s in control now, because nobody has the star power of a Jordan. So he’s handcuffed everybody in the NBA: “You can’t do this. You can’t do that.” So you got a game played mostly by young black men controlled by a 60-something white guy. It’s time to put the game back in the hands of the players and the coaches.
Oh, and while I’m at it, that offer I made to Stern when I was with Dallas—the one where I challenged him to a boxing match in the nude—that still stands.
Just give Darren a call.
We’ll sell the place out.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS
At the same time my NBA career was tanking, my career as a celebrity rep was picking up. Remember that Tonight Show appearance? Viewers may have thought I was just making a fashion statement by wearing the Southeastern Oklahoma State Jersey and the baseball cap sporting a GoldenPalace.com logo. Not. It was all about money, honey. Every time that adidas sells one of those “True School Authentic Vintage Throwback Jerseys,” as they call them, I get a cut. As for GoldenPalace.com, I have a substantial contract with the online gambling casino that dates back a couple of years, and being a walking billboard for the company is the least of it.
GoldenPalace.com is known for its “guerrilla marketing.” These guys will do just about anything to get the company name out there. When Karolyne Smith from Salt Lake City put her forehead up for bid for advertising space on eBay, they took her up on it and paid $10,000 to permanently tattoo “GoldenPalace.com” on her skull. Angel Brammer of Glasgow, Scotland, made the same offer with her ample cleavage, but this time the tattoo would be temporary, lasting only 15 days. So the guys at GoldenPalace.com purchased what their website calls a “Massive Media Opportunity,” Brammer’s humongous 42-GG breasts, for a bargain-basement $800.
Also on eBay, the online casino bought a partially eaten grilled cheese sandwich said to contain a likeness of the Virgin Mary for $28,000, a 1999 Volkswagen Golf once owned by the Pope for about $250,000, and the naming rights for several children and adults. There are several more “Goldies” running around out there these days. And when an Ottawa radio station put an alleged Britney Spears pregnancy test up for bid, the company snapped it up for $5,000.The GoldenPalace.com logo has also been plastered on a herd of 100 cows in Sarasota, Florida, and on the backs of a long series of boxers—beginning with Bernard “The Executioner” Hopkins for his middleweight title match with Felix Trinidad at Madison Square Garden in 2001. Hopkins reportedly bet the $100,000 rental fee on himself. Good move—underdog Hopkins knocked out the previously undefeated Trinidad in the 12th round.
In 2002, the good folks from the Nevada Athletic Commission took GoldenPalace.com to court, trying to stop them from stenciling their logo on boxers. When the casino won, they claimed it was “a victory for free speech.” But the real victory was for “free publicity.” Every time GoldenPalace.com “tattooed” a boxer, it generated news coverage, which, of course, was the whole idea. The same goes for each time they pulled some kind of stunt or bought weird shit on eBay. Meanwhile, no matter what kind of off-the-wall thing they were doing, they always seemed to find a way to raise cash for some charity.
It turned out Darren knew one of the guys over at GoldenPalace.com, and when he told me about all their antics, I was like, “This is a match made in heaven.” Since I signed with them, I’ve run with the bulls in Pamplona twice, raising thousands for M.S. research; played host at the 2005 Wife Carrying Championships in Sonkajärvi, Finland; and, also in 2005, I led the eight-day, 3,000-mile Bullrun road rally.
For the rally, several dozen cars (somebody guessed the collection of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Rolls-Royces, and the like were worth about $13 million) made the trip from Miami to Los Angeles. You probably heard about Bullrun, since we left a trail of speeding tickets, reckless driving charges, and hick-town, “Them-big-cityfolk-can’t-git-away-with-that-shit-here!” newspaper stories.
“[They] disturbed the peace of our nice little community with just wanton disregard for anybody else,” a Colorado State Trooper told the Summit Daily News.
They may have had a point. In one 500-mile stretch between Salt Lake City and Reno, we would manage to collect 20 tickets. I did my part, picking up three in my gold Lamborghini. But like Lieutenant Darrell Hinton of the Cortez, Colorado, police department told The Durango Herald, “Someone who can afford a $200,000 dollar car isn’t going to worry about a speeding ticket.”
Now all this was no big deal until the Dennis Rodman crime wave washed over the Tomahawk Auto Truck Plaza in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. After we pulled out, a clerk accused me of stealing a cowboy hat and stiffing them for like $20 worth of gas. What horseshit. To borrow from Lieutenant Hinton, “If a guy can afford a $200,000 car. …” But because it was Dennis Rodman, the story made headlines.
Reality Check: Live by the media, die by the media.
GoldenPalace.com is the kind of edgy company you would have expected to take on Dennis Rodman, even when I was drinking—they are some wild sons of bitches. But adidas? Nah. That deal proved I had come a long way from the days when Converse cancelled my shoe contract citing a “morals clause.” My newfound respectability would even lead to a deal with The Upper Deck Company—an outfit Darren calls “the largest sports licensing and sports memorabilia company in the world.”
I signed with them about the same time I was meeting with Phil Jackson in December of 2003. The Upper Deck Company wouldn’t touch my ass when I was a basketball mega-star with the Chicago Bulls. Too hot to handle. Now I would be joining the likes of Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods on the company roster. The Rodman basketball cards became available in January 2004.
A final sign that Dennis Rodman was going mainstream was my appearance in a Super Bowl commercial in 2005. The 30-second spot for Silestone quartz countertops featured Chicago sports legends Mike Ditka, William “Refrigerator” Perry, Jim McMahon, and me. I’m the one with the orange hair taking a bubble bath. In the spot, I claim to be “Diana Pearl,” which was actually the name of one of the countertop colors. The company paid almost $2.5 million to air the spot, and it was a milestone in my celebrity rep career.
In a little over a year’s time, I had gone from video of Dennis Rodman nursing his wounds in a dark Vegas hotel room to video of Dennis Rodman pitching a product in the most high-profile commercial showcase the world has to offer. That was some comeback.
The reason was simple enough. The new Dennis Rodman was marketable. I still had an edge, but I was no longer over the edge. As I told the Chicago Sun-Times, “I have toned down my personality and my lifestyle.
“A lot of the crazy stuff I did when I was playing—wearing a dress, make-up and playing the tough guy—that’s pretty much in the past.”
By the middle of 2005, my comeback as a celebrity rep was complete. I
had ongoing deals with GoldenPalace.com, adidas, and The Upper Deck Company, among others; had new contracts to launch Dennis Rodman jewelry and furniture lines; was opening a second Rodman’s restaurant, this one in Hawaii; had signed up to shoot several reality shows; and was scheduled to play exhibition basketball games in China, Finland, and Sweden.
I was not only back on track, I was doing better than ever.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
MICHELLE, MY BELLE
I took the phone call in Vegas, and the first thing I thought was, “She’s dead.” First thing. Any rookie motorcycle rider taking on those winding mountain roads up at Big Bear is just asking for it. Sure, my wife, Michelle, was riding a bike known for its easy handling—a 1992 Harley Davidson Fat Boy—but it’s still a lot of motorcycle for a beginner to grapple with, all 650 pounds of it.
And there was another problem. The Fat Boy was one of my old bikes (I had given it to her for a birthday present), and the wingspan of the handlebars was perfect for a six-foot-eight guy with long arms—not so perfect for Michelle.
So the group left Running Spring, California, around noon, and about a mile out of town, Michelle was coming down the mountain, going too fast, trying to keep up with her friends—two guys and two girls. The road curved right, and she drifted across the centerline. She tried to pull the bike around, but couldn't manage the handlebars, and the goddamn thing was headed straight toward oncoming traffic. She over-corrected, hit the shoulder, and that was it. The Harley slid along the guardrail, hit a guardrail post, threw her, then slid another 40 feet. Meanwhile Michelle slammed into the guardrail, and her helmet popped off. If the guardrail isn’t there, she goes over the cliff and her ass is dead. Her friends called for help, and she was airlifted by helicopter to the emergency room at Loma Linda University Medical Center.
So I got the call, freaked out, and Thaer and I caught the first flight out of Vegas. At the time, Michelle and I weren’t even talking—not at all. It was the usual off and on, hot and cold shit. But she’s my wife and the mother of my kids.
We got to the hospital. She had a broken leg, collarbone, and ankle; two cracked vertebrae; assorted bruises; and bumps on her face that looked like cherries. But she was going to survive, make a full recovery. Now I was pissed. What was she thinking?
“Is it that serious?” she asked.
“You’re lucky to be alive,” the doctor said.
She was so out of it that she didn’t even know what had happened and thought she’d been in a car accident with the kids.
About a week later, after having a rod surgically implanted in her left leg, Michelle came home from the hospital in a wheelchair, wearing a neck brace. I knew she was going to be fine when she started bitching. She was all upset because I wasn’t “there” for her and the kids after the accident. Said her mother and her friends stepped in and took care of things while she “had no idea what I was doing. No idea.”
What I was doing was working to make money to pay her fucking hospital bills. Turned out Michelle had not made it down to our accountant’s office to sign some papers, and she didn’t have health insurance. I still don’t know how much that’s going cost me, somewhere around $100,000.
Later, Michelle said the accident was a big turning point for her in our relationship. She was like, “That’s it. Done!” Again, because I wasn’t “there” for her.
Well who does she think called her mother in Seattle and flew her ass down? As for the kids, I was “there” most every day when Michelle was in the hospital. Not that I had shit to do. The nanny didn’t need a lot of help. Anyway, I am always taking care of my kids. They live in a nice house. They have nice clothes. They’ve got everything they want in the world.
Of course, if you’re a man, you know all that doesn’t mean shit. You can talk yourself silly, present evidence, pile up the facts, whatever: she’s still right, you’re still wrong, get over it. If you ever want to get laid again, you best start groveling. No big deal. For the past few years, it seems like Michelle and I are always in the middle of either breaking up or getting back together. It wasn’t that way in the beginning.
I don’t remember any of this, but Michelle claims she first laid eyes on me at the Cheesecake Factory in the Fashion Island Shopping Center in Newport Beach in 1997. She was there with a guy friend, and she says we started talking, something about her tattoos and piercings, me using my usual colorful language, “motherfucker” this and “motherfucker” that.
Then I asked the guy, “This your wife?”
He was like, “No. If she were you wouldn’t be disrespecting her like that.”
There was a little more jawing back and forth, and that was it.
A couple of years later I was at Margaritaville in Newport Beach with Jeremy Gallagher and a couple of other friends listening to—I think it was the Blue Machine band—and throwing back a few Redheaded Sluts, a concoction made out of Jägermeister, cranberry juice, and peach schnapps. Michelle and her way-hot girlfriend walked by. Everybody was drooling over the girlfriend, but Michelle kept parading back and forth, trying to get our attention.
After a while, I got up to go talk to the girlfriend, but suddenly Michelle was in my face—at least that’s the way I remember it. Michelle says I called her over to the table. Whatever. We all ended up drinking Kamakazis, having a good ole time.
Later we left Margaritaville and went down to a club called White House in Laguna Beach. Michelle got lucky. Her husband had left the place five minutes before we got there. Unfortunately, his best friend was still around, and he tried to drag Michelle out of my pick-up truck. She kicked him away and told him to “Fuck off!” Words were exchanged, but the guy was outnumbered, so he disappeared. Shortly thereafter, Michelle started getting phone calls from her husband. She was like, “Screw you. I’m staying with Dennis.”
He kept calling.
She kept hanging up on him.
“I felt like I was in high school,” recalled Jeremy.
Meanwhile, Michelle’s way-hot girlfriend got sick, threw up, and went home. Michelle stayed and ended up going to the beach house with me. She was married. I was still with Carmen Electra.
“We were both being bad,” said Michelle.
Some badder than others.
So we were in my bedroom going at it, and her phone rings again. She answers it again. Guess who? She told him not to call back, and we went on about our business. I was thinking, “This is the kind of girl I like. Fucking bold as hell.”
This was in December of 1999. We started seeing each other, but then I signed with the Mavericks and was off to Dallas. We kept up a phone relationship, and I called her one day, said, “What’s up?” She was like, “My husband beat my ass.” She claimed he had broken her nose in two places. I can’t vouch for that, never saw her, but at the time, I took her word for it.
“Well, go to my house and stay there, and I’ll take care of you,” I said.
So I moved her and her 10-year-old daughter into the beach house, and I was a big hero. “My knight in shining armor,” she called me. I’ve met girls like Michelle all my life, seen them leave their husbands because of me. Most of the time, I was like, “Not my problem.” I didn’t want to be tied down. But for some reason, I felt sorry for Michelle.
After I moved home from Dallas in March, I got Michelle and her kid a place in Mission Viejo. She said she hated her job, so I told her to quit and hang out with me. Normally that would be the last thing I wanted, but there was something about this girl.
Michelle soon got an up close-and-personal look at the Dennis Rodman lifestyle.
Here’s a couple of quick stories.
Even though Michelle and I were sleeping together, Carmen was my number-one girl at the time. Michelle was cool with it. How cool? One time when I couldn’t drive because my license had been suspended, she actually chauffeured me up to L.A. to see Ms. Electra. Another day when Carmen showed up unannounced at the beach house for a barbeque, Michelle hid next door. Eventuall
y she left, and Carmen stayed. That was the pecking order, and everybody knew it. After hanging with me awhile, Michelle not only knew her place, she knew that when it came to relationships, nothing was sacred, and nothing was permanent.
“She knew exactly what Dennis Rodman was about,” Thaer recalled. “She read his books. She saw him every day.
“She got involved in a relationship with her eyes wide open,” Thaer continued. “And she knew all these other women couldn’t change him. If Carmen Electra couldn’t change him, how did she think she was going to change him?”
“Yeah, I knew how he was. I was just praying that things would change,” Michelle told a reporter. “Any woman wants to believe that she’s gonna be the one that is different for him. And I did, I did believe that.
“I was in denial,” she continued. “I didn’t want to believe he actually had these other women. And what I didn’t see didn’t hurt me.”
Six months after I got back from Dallas, I was sitting in Josh Slocum’s one afternoon, minding my own business, and this girl who had been hanging out with us came in and said, “Congratulations on you guys having a baby.”
I was like, “Who you talkin’ to? Me? You talkin’ to me? I’m not havin’ no fuckin’ baby.”
She said, “Well, Michelle just said she’s three months’ pregnant.”
I was like, “What?”
Michelle was still married, for God’s sake. We were nowhere near being an official “couple.” I was beyond pissed. Some days I think Michelle got pregnant on purpose. Some days I don’t. Every day I’m glad she did. D.J. has always been a joy. In fact, I loved D.J. so much, Michelle and I planned the second baby. The way I looked at it, “We got one; why don’t we have another one? Fuck it.” So not long after D.J. was born on April 25, 2001, Michelle got pregnant with Trinity.
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