Five-time NBA champion Dennis Rodman apologized to his daughter, Olympic gold medalist Trinity Rodman, after she criticized him for being absent much of her life on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast.
“He’s not a dad. Maybe by blood, but nothing else,” she told host Alex Cooper. “Hearing his voice is painful.”
Rodman responded with a public apology on Instagram shortly after the podcast episode was published.
“Sorry I wasn’t the Dad you wanted me to be but either way I still tried and I still try and never will stop,” he wrote in the lengthy post. “I will keep trying even when you’re being told as an adult not to respond to my phone calls. I’m always here and tell you all the time – whether it’s your voice or voicemail – how proud I am. I always had one wish, and it was I wish my kids would call me and come see me. Hopefully one day I can get that. I’m here and I’m still trying, pick up the phone, you have my number. You see me calling, I’m still here.”
Trinity also revealed that at one point, she was forced to live in a car with her mother because of financial struggles after her parents divorced in 2012. Despite his reported $27 million NBA career earnings, she recalled, “We had (a Ford) Expedition and we kind of lived in that for a little bit… He’s having parties 24/7, bringing random b*tches in, loves the spotlight, loves the cameras. He’s an extremely selfish human being.”
However, she said they briefly reconciled during her early career with the Washington Spirit in 2021.
“When he showed up at my game, I was, like, so mad,” she remembered. “I started crying on the field. So I’m trying to play the soccer game and I’m crying.”
Dennis has previously spoken about his struggles to break out of a cycle of absenteeism due to his own difficult upbringing. “For some reason, it’s very hard for me to break out of that cycle,” he told ESPN in 2019. “I never had anyone to ever do that for me.”
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