Tonya Harding High School Friend Said She Plotted Against Other Skaters

A friend of Tonya Harding’s from high school says that Nancy Kerrigan wasn’t the first ice skater on her hit list. Jenna Halase met Tonya Harding when the two were students at Milwaukie High School and says that they were inseparable for the four years of high school, despite Harding’s obsession with winning at any cost. But even though Jenna Halase was impressed by the hard work and training of Tonya Harding, she claims that she also witnessed plots and schemes against other skaters beyond Nancy Kerrigan.

Some Still Think It’s Odd That Tonya Harding’s Violent Attack Is Being Glamourized

Some critics believe that the new movies about the life of Tonya Harding, including, I, Tonya, which is now up for a variety of awards, glorify cheating and violence. The movie, The Bronze, with Melissa Rauch from The Big Bang Theory playing Tonya Harding, and I, Tonya, with Margot Robbie, both cover similar territory in the life and scandal of Tonya Harding, and both also address the assault of Nancy Kerrigan, which some continue to note was not funny.

In I, Tonya, the movie tells the story of Tonya Harding’s full life, from a childhood of struggles through the assault on Nancy Kerrigan orchestrated by Harding’s former husband, Jeff Gillooly. As a result of the attack on Kerrigan, Oksana Bayul went home with the gold, Kerrigan the silver, and Harding the Bronze.

Tonya Harding, the disgraced figure skater, is back in the spotlight https://t.co/q5CRQiHJXb

— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 24, 2018

A High School Friend Says Tonya Harding Sabotaged Skaters As A Child

Jenna Halase says that Nancy Kerrigan wasn’t the only other ice skater at risk as Tonya Harding was coming up through the ranks of competitive skating, says RadarOnline. Halase said she had a front-row seat to Tonya Harding’s intensity at after-school practices.

“She practiced every day. There was no one who trained as hard as her.”

Jenna Halase explains that she heard about Tonya Harding’s plots against other skaters.

“She would tell me the things that she did. How this skater would piss her off so she put scotch tape on her skate blades so she’d go off track.”

And sabotaging other skaters wasn’t something that started when Tonya Harding reached the world stage, she started doing it as a little kid.

“She did it as a kid. She would literally stop at nothing to be in first place.”

Kristi Yamaguchi Was Allegedly The First Target Of Tonya Harding

And Halase said that it wasn’t just Tonya Harding plotting against other girls in the skating community because Harding was often spurred on by her mother, Lovana.

“Her mom [Lovana] would say, ‘Oh I wish Kristi Yamaguchi would fall and break her leg,’ and Tonya would say, ‘We can make that happen.'”

Jenna Halase claimed that talk of leg breaking almost became commonplace, and during high school days, the focus was on Kristi Yamaguchi.

“She said things like that before, like, ‘Oh, I hate Kristi. I hope she breaks her leg.'”

Back in 1990 when Tonya Harding was trying to make it to the Nationals, Jenna Halase says she was sitting around with Harding and then-boyfriend Jeff Gillooly, and they were thinking about the best way to take Kristi Yamaguchi and others out of the competition.

“We were sitting around the table and she was complaining that she wasn’t going to make it in time for Nationals. I thought at the time they were just talking crap, like, ‘I bet it would be really easy to make this person have a car accident. I could just mess with her brake lines and then they’d be out of the competition.'”

At the time, Halase said that she believed it was simply “Tonya being Tonya,” until the assault on Nancy Kerrigan.

Tonya Harding’s Ex-Husband Who Plotted The Nancy Kerrigan Attack Has Resurfaced

But it isn’t only Tonya Harding who has resurfaced from one of the strangest sports events in history, says Daily Mail. Harding’s ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, who has changed his name to Jeff Stone, has been posting about the movie, I, Tonya, and telling friends that he got to meet the actor who played him in the movie.

Gillooly also posted a photo of Tonya Harding with Nancy Kerrigan and a joke about injuring knees. Below the photo, he posted his alleged joke in all caps.

“BACK WHEN “TAKING A KNEE” MEANT TAKING A KNEE.”