Former US figure skater Tonya Harding put out a book last spring in which she claimed that she had no part in the 1994 clubbing attack of her rival, Nancy Kerrigan. 38 year-old Harding said that the incident was a plot planned by her ex husband, Jeff Gillooly, and his conspirators. When she found out that they were behind the knee beating she said she planned to go to the FBI with the information but that Gillooly and two men she did not know raped her at gunpoint to keep her silent. It took her 14 years to go public with this information because she was scared, she claimed. Many people doubted her account of the long-over attack, but I watched her tell her story on the Today Show and found her very believable.

In a recent interview with HBO Real Sports Tonya was asked about the fact that President Obama brought up her name during his 2007 campaign, saying he wasn’t going to “knee cap” his then-opponent Hillary Clinton and “do a Tonya Harding.” Harding got visibly upset when she was asked about it, and seemed incredibly pissed off that Obama used her name, which has become synonymous with dirty tricks. (This story is a little old and you may have heard it already, but it’s news to me. )

In a recent interview for HBO’s “Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel,” Oregonian and infamous figure skater Tonya Harding lashed out about President Obama’s use of her name in a past speech.

Back when he was still on the campaign trail in 2007, Barack Obama talked about how the pundits said he should “knee cap her” or “do a Tonya Harding on the front runner,” referring to his main contender at the time, then U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton.

“He has this country to think about, he has the candidacy to think about, he has the war to think about, and he has to bring me up? What the hell is important in this world today?” she responded.

“But guess what, I get jobs because he used my name on national television, because people forgive who Tonya Harding is. All publicity is good publicity.”

Harding went on to say that she doesn’t care what other people think. But visibly, she did seem to care what the President thought, as she grew more agitated over the questioning.The interview clip quickly made its rounds on YouTube as yet another entertaining example of Harding not being afraid to say exactly what was on her mind.

“It sounds really harsh, it sounds like I’m being a backwoods hicks girl, but you know what, that is who I am,” she said. “If you like me, great. If you don’t like me, that’s okay, that’s your opinion. But I betcha, you’ll still pay money to come and see me.”

[From KGW Portland via Gossip Rocks]

Tonya still has the 90s bangs and she still has the defiant attitude. She’s had a rough life and she obviously resents it when people bring up her past, even though she keeps emphasizing that she doesn’t care. Some of her attitude might be attributed to a bad rapport with the interviewer, Bernie Goldberg, who called her a “piece of work” and probably had some few choice words for her before she gave this sound bite. If the 1994 attack did happen without her knowledge and she was raped at gunpoint to keep quiet about it you can understand why she gets so upset when people still bring it up and use her name as if she’s solely responsible.

Harding has been touring the US and Canada in extreme boxing exhibitions.