U.S. women's national soccer team star Trinity Rodman opened up about her relationship with her father, criticizing former Bulls great and Basketball Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman for not being a presence in her life.
In an interview on the Call Her Daddy podcast released on Wednesday, the 2024 Olympic gold medalist accused the elder Rodman of being an erratic factor throughout her youth and up to today. Per the Washington Spirit forward — who had previously characterized her relationship with her father as strained — the five-time NBA champion would barely see his children a handful of times in a given year, then insist on being in control.
"He’s not a dad. Maybe by blood, but nothing else," the 22-year-old said of one of basketball's biggest names from the 1990s. "We were getting enough money to pay rent, barely. And then we were just, I don't even know how we made it work, but somehow we were making it happen."
Dennis Rodman became one of the NBA's biggest stars, playing a key role on the second Bulls "three-peat" team built around Michael Jordan. Between Rodman's rebounding prowess — the New Jersey native lead the league in rebounding for seven straight seasons, and is considered one of the all-time greats in the category — and his outlandish personality, "The Worm" had a big-time NBA contract, endorsements, and even branched into acting.
Per his daughter, who just helped the Washington Spirit to this year's NWSL championship final, that money didn't go toward supporting his children.
"We had [a Ford] Expedition, and we kind of lived in that for a little bit," Trinity Rodman said. "I think this is when we were at ... Ensign by Newport Harbor. So we were still in Newport [Beach]. So imagine living in a car, going to a rich [high] school. It's the most weird thing, but we were living in a car, but then we could afford to stay in a motel for a little bit. So we were kind of back and forth, what nights we could pay for, how many nights we could pay for."
Rodman said that over the years, Dennis would drop in "once, two, three, four times a year," and that those moments often involved a clash over whether her father was doing enough to look after the family financially.
"That was all the fight [between her parents] was ever about in front of us, at least. It was just the money part, and helping your children," explained the 2024 NWSL Best 11 forward. "My dad, he likes to be in control. So, he would take us shopping, get us phones, do this, do that. 'Oh, I'm gonna take you and your brother shopping,' and me and my brother are like, 'We don't want to go shopping. We don't want to go shopping!' We just want money to go get In-N-Out after school with our friends.' So it was like, he wouldn't give us money to do that.
"He needed to have the control, of bringing us shopping and swiping his own card. But if we asked, 'Hey, could we have $100 to go get food, go to Claire's to get my ears pierced?' Just little stuff like that, he was like, 'No, you're using me.'"
For the USWNT attacker, life as Dennis Rodman's daughter has been complicated. Trinity has shown up for Washington Spirit games wearing shirts recalling some of her father's most notorious looks, but noted in the interview that she has had to be very intentional about what she does and doesn't discuss when he comes up.
"I think with the dad situation — in terms of what I've filtered and what I've talked about — I feel like me and my brother have been very generous with the way that we've talked about it, and very unselfish," Rodman said. "I think we never want to make him look bad, and that is at the cost of kind of holding in a lot, and a lot of issues that we've gone through, and just like trauma, per se.
"I just feel like I've been in a place of going through interviews where people are like, 'Is your dad there? What's your dad feeling?' And I feel like I've tried to make it obvious that I don't know. I don't know how he's feeling. I don't know where he is. So for my own sanity, getting those questions, it frustrates me."
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