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Sufjan Stevens Royal Festival Hall London020915 J Williamson 1

Tonya Harding isn't actually all that keen on the Sufjan Stevens song about her

10 January 2018, 15:34 | Written by Laurence Day

Late last year Sufjan Stevens released "Tonya Harding", a heartfelt tribute to the disgraced former Olympic figure skater, but it turns out she's not particularly keen on it.

Stevens not only released the song, but penned an essay about Harding and got a portrait completed for the artwork. It seems to have been done with good intentions, but it still didn't sit right with Harding - now Tonya Price - herself.

In a profile by the New York Times, writer Taffy Brodesser-Akner gives some more info:

I told her about the essays I’d read about how we should have been kinder and protected her back then. She doesn’t want to hear it. What do we know about her? We never asked. She doesn’t want anything to do with Sufjan Stevens’s lovely song about her. Did he call her first to talk to her? Did any of those people writing their defenses of her call her up and ask if they could make money using her name? No! “Who gives these people permission to use my name?”

She doesn’t need our protection now, thank you very much. She needed it back then. Where were our think pieces then? “You all disrespected me and it hurt. I’m a human being and it hurt my heart,” she said, her hand karate chopping the table lightly with every word for emphasis. “I was a liar to everybody but still, 23 years later, finally everybody can just eat crow. That’s what I have to say.”

This interview hasn't stemmed from Stevens' song, of course, but more likely the resurgent public interest in Price and her story following the release acclaimed biopic I, Tonya.

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