Over the past few months, when sports have been at an all-time low, I have turned my attention to the documentaries of ESPN's excellent 30 for 30 series. Just by circumstance, there’s been one figure that has been popping up with a freakish regularity: Dennis Rodman. Maybe it’s because my focus has been the early 90s basketball, but it felt like everyone had a story to share about him. Along with the recent greatness of The Last Dance (2020), I have become well-acquainted with his career, going back to the “Bad Boys” era of The Detroit Pistons.
For a guy who is burned permanently into pop culture as Rodman and the Amazing Technicolor Hairstyle, he has lived quite the life. He is genuinely a good player who shouldn’t have any right to be so. He just so happened to land in the right pockets, able to work with coaches that understood his wrecking-ball approach to The NBA that allowed him to flourish as he became rebound king while making every bold statement that he wanted. He wasn’t just a bad boy who dreamed of ending his last basketball game by stripping butt-naked. He was a mainstream celebrity who raised interesting conversations about sexuality and what masculinity ultimately was.
And yet, because of Rodman: For Better or Worse (2019), I kind of forever see him as a tragic figure. The 30 for 30 doc focused on his career starting with his rough childhood up through the later years as Kim Jong-Un’s biggest fan. Somewhere in that fray, I got the impression that Rodman was doing all of this for some hole inside of him, the one that needed to feel loved but had no way to do it without putting on an act. As it stands, I’m still not sure how much of his flamboyancy is genuine and how much is an escape from personal pain.
Then again, anyone who stops at the surface will have admitted how much of a hoot he was in the 1990s. He owned the bad boy image so well, colliding into the seats at basketball games and doing everything to annoy his opponents. He revolutionized a certain kind of basketball. One that may be a bit controversial and not always one I enjoy watching, but there’s no denying that he had this energy to him that drew you to him. He was like Patrick Beverley if he was a freewheeling cannonball, not caring about anything beyond his self-interest.
That is what made 1996 a particularly interesting hear. While on The Chicago Bulls during their personal heights, he decided to release a memoir titled “Bad As I Wanna Be.” Based on everything that I’ve mentioned, one has to find some excitement in whatever he had to say. He lived an unprecedented life. He infamously would party all night during basketball season and show up whenever he felt like, turning in typical Rodman charisma. He wanted to find ways to make you question why you loved him, always needing to have this disappointing divide that made you worry about him.
Of course, this memoir is considered to be Peak Rodman, the moment when it was understood that he was more than some wild child. He was someone who was capable of dominating the publishing industry as well. By the end of 1996, he was a New York Times best-seller.
Though if you want to believe that Rodman earned that without some publicity-grabbing press, you clearly haven’t been paying attention. While this is no magnum opus of literary excellence, it may be one of the greatest marketing campaigns since his ex-girlfriend Madonna’s own “Sex” book a few years prior. No, if he was going to release a book he was going to do it with fireworks and confetti going off.
Around this time, Rodman was managing to monetize on his own outside of The Bulls. With The Rodman World Tour, he created a TV show where his wild antics were the draw. He’d interview guests from his bed, popping out of tour buses to The Late Show with David Letterman to spray paint his hair green. He once even head-butted a referee and got suspended only to record fast-food commercials to compensate residuals.
This was Rodman in 1996. He was unpredictable like no sports star before. You wanted to get near him. That is why in interviews leading up to “Bad As I Wanna Be,” his personal identity was discussed in great detail. In an interview with Stone Phillips, they go into detail about his fashion, sometimes feminine or flamboyant with mesh shirts and vibrant hats, and how he enjoyed wearing dresses. He wasn’t ashamed of his decisions. This was what he presented as his genuine self.
There would also be footage of him wandering around night clubs. In the Phillips interview, he is seen being approached by at least five women who all share similar carnal desires. Because of how approachable he is, they want to have sex with him. It’s never outright said by them, but the connotation was there. Rodman says he gets it a lot, again nonchalantly suggesting that all basketball stars do. He’s not afraid of the recent HIV/AIDS crisis that bestowed fellow NBA star Magic Johnson because people move on. They will do what they want.
Of course, the cover for “Bad As I Wanna Be” is not nearly as shocking when placed into the context of his photoshoots. When he was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, he dressed in the feminine wardrobe. It is said that it became one of SI’s highest-selling issues that were not swimsuit editions. The fact that he spawned the back cover of his memoir completely naked was not entirely shocking. If his appearance on The Late Show was any suggestion, he was more amused by this vulgar artwork.
Then again, his front cover was even more “erotic.” From atop a motorcycle, he was once again naked. Basketballs flew everywhere. There was one suggestively placed around his groin, serving as the only piece of censorship on the whole cover.
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It is said that this was inspired by Howard Stern’s own memoir “Miss America.” On the cover of that New York Times best-seller, Stern is seen in complete drag. Even if it was a joke, the presence is completely feminine and lacking any sense of mockery. Still, it was enough for Rodman to go further, posing in a suggestive position that, if nothing else, was going to make you remember this cover.
The Late Show appearance was one of his last stops before the momentous book launch. Considering that Letterman was game for any antics, it made sense with how eventful things would be. This was the moment that he spray-painted his head green, hyping up the following day as something momentous. He was going to come parading through New York with “his new bride” to introduce her to the world. At the time nobody knew who it was, only adding to the morbid curiosity that would be on display.
The following day, with thousands lining the streets, Rodman came to the book launch with the press in a frenzy. What was going to happen? From a horse-drawn carriage, he came down the street. In one of his most famous moments in his entire career, he was the one wearing the wedding dress. He did the whole book signing in it, cameras flashing and proving how this moment symbolized something greater about the world’s obsession with him.
As for the person he married? Even if you predicted something crazy, there’s a good chance that you wouldn’t be able to assume what happened next. As someone who had dated Madonna and Carmen Electra, he could’ve said anyone and it would’ve made more sense than what it ended up being. On that day, he came out as bisexual by saying that he was going to “marry himself.”
Whether this was antagonistic playfulness or a genuine misunderstanding of bisexuality, it’s a moment that is difficult to forget. It feels like it has only become more significant in pop culture as time has gone on. Nowadays gender fluidity is more openly embraced, so seeing a man proudly wearing a dress is less shocking. Even if he wasn’t the first, the fact that a man on his platform was able to do it without his career being destroyed only showed what potential lied ahead. Queer artists could be bolder, more attention-grabbing, and it might just be another Saturday afternoon one day.
As mentioned, “Bad As I Wanna Be” went on to be a best-seller. It also launched a series of memoirs from Rodman that only sought to make him more transparent. With that said, there was nothing as crazy as the description of his 1997 follow-up, “Walk on the Wild Side,” which according to GoodReads featured this description on the back cover:
I have this fantasy that I can live my life like a tiger in the jungle - eating whatever I want, having sex whenever I want, and roaming around butt naked, wild and free...It sounds difficult and complicated, but it doesn't have to be. Everything you need to set yourself free is right there inside you. If you close your eyes and concentrate, you can feel it in the blood rushing through your veins and the thumping of your heart. When you can feel your inner spirit, peace will overcome you, and you'll be ready to break through that mirror or fly through that window and flourish. Or it may be something as simple as opening a door and stepping into a land you've been checking out all along. The Wild Side may be right there in front of you...
That’s a story for another day (and someone else’s website). For now, it’s important to understand how salacious this whole endeavor was. Even the font design wasn’t of the convention. It was said to be based on Stern’s memoir. There were portions written in bold, italicized, and even larger styles that made it pop. Nothing about its appearance could be properly compared to books of the era, where even the headers had jarring inconsistencies.
Short of reading it, I can only provide some details about what has been reported about its contents. The first chapter focused on an incident where he contemplated suicide from a parking lot. It was before he came out as someone flamboyant, seeking to be truer to himself. Later chapters would talk about how he’d force Elektra to put on headphones and listen to Pearl Jam during sex.
Similarly, he talked at length about his time with Madonna. If there’s something tragic about this whole text, it’s that they come across as oddly compatible: two artists seeking as much attention as possible. It is said that Madonna wanted Rodman’s child to an irregular degree, even forcing him to leave a poker game in Las Vegas to perform coital duties.
Then, at the heart of the relationship was the piece of Rodman that hurts the most. It’s the one I am reminded about most in Rodman: For Better or Worse. Despite professing deep love for each other, Rodman passed marrying her because he couldn’t accept being seen as “Mr. Madonna.” He loved her for her, but because of their public personas, he wasn’t able to take the next step.
So the life of Rodman looking for love continued. His road ahead was going to be even more fraught, eventually leading to a complicated marriage and a notorious relationship with Kim Jong-Un. He became more difficult to love, which is how he’d want it. Even in this time, he would write more books, including the children’s story “Dennis the Wild Bull,” as well as make his own line of vodka referred to as Bad Ass Vodka.
To date, Rodman has been considered a bad boy of basketball, and sometimes you wonder if that took a toll on him. He constantly needed to top himself, and “Bad As I Wanna Be” was as much the peak of this as it was a cautionary warning of how far he was willing to go. It’s hard to know if he’s capable of experiencing love, or if he’s just messing with all of us. Whatever the case may be, it’s amazing how much his acts of seeking attention changed the zeitgeist, for better or worse. He was as bad as he wanted to be, but all I want to know is if he’s doing good personally.
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