Dennis Rodman

American basketball small forward and power forward, nicknamed "the Worm", he played for the Detroit Pistons (1986-1993), San Antonio Spurs (1993-1995), Chicago Bulls (1995-1998), Los Angeles Lakers (1999), and Dallas Mavericks (2000) of the National Basketball Association (NBA). By 1993 he had two championship rings on his way to a second straight rebounding title. He had played in two All-Star games and was the NBA Defensive Player of the Year twice. He was wildly popular in Detroit, loved what he did and the adulation that went with it. He had it all, a Ferrari, name recognition, money, fame and glory. Yet, on an April night in 1993, he debated killing himself with a shotgun. It was his seventh and last season with the Pistons and the team was going downhill fast. He was making $2.5 million a year and looking at the guys who were making ten times that, feeling out in the cold and sorry for himself. Always flamboyant, always an exhibitionist, always driven, he decided in that conversation with his shotgun that he was going to be whoever and whatever he wanted to be. From bottoming out, he emerged with a fuller identity. The first thing he did was bleach his hair blond. The fans went nuts. When he was in college he had stuck quarters in his ears to get attention. Now he went over the top. He moved on to pink hair, a ring in his nose, multiple earrings, painted fingernails. Sometimes he wore womens clothing, "exploring his feminine side." He said that a sequined halter top and tight leather shorts "made him feel like a whole person, not just one-dimensional." Rodmans second book, released in 1997, Walk on the Wild Side, was full of sex and obscenities, so much so that Oprah Winfrey cancelled an appearance that Rodman was scheduled to do on her show. Included in the work were details of his affair with a transsexual and the reasons for which he dates white women versus black women, as well as other information about his "identity." Rodman said, "Fifty percent of life in the NBA is SEX. The other fifty percent is money." Far from the time when he was a skinny throwaway kid, the women adored him, they were all over him, a long way from his first sex experience, with a prostitute when he was 20. His steady girlfriends were usually white women, and he could have a woman at his side at any time with 15 minutes notice. In early 1995 a Hawks cheerleader sued him for $1.5 million, claiming he gave her herpes, which he flatly denied. He won the case but not before it cost him $225,000 in lawyers fees. His first wife, Anicka Bakes divorced him in 1993; they had a five-year-old daughter. Madonna came into his life in 1994 at a Knicks game at Madison Square Garden. In April, one of her people called to invite him to Miami where she was going to interview him for Vibe, the hip-hop magazine. When he arrived at her house he said, "Im Dennis," she said, "Im Madonna," and they both said, "Great." After the interview, they were all over each other. After going out to a gay bar for the evening, they ended up back in Madonnas bed. For the following six months when they were together, the media attention was incredible. He was living with a girl in San Antonio during the time until they broke up. Rodman writes that he thinks about death a lot. That he does not do drugs. That he is bisexual in his attitude but not physically. He wants to play his last game in the NBA in the nude. He wants to walk off the court, taking off one ga Read less