Former Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding has made her way into the public spotlight yet again in recent months, first during the Oscar buzz around last year's I, Tonya, and now as she becomes a contestant on the newest season of Dancing With The Stars. Chances are, she'll have a partner in her cheering section when she makes her debut. Fans will probably be seeing a lot of Tonya Harding's husband Joe Price.
According to a New York Times profile of Harding from January, Harding actually legally shares Price's last name. The figure skater told the outlet that the couple met in 2010 just after she'd come back to Washington from a job in Los Angeles, and she spotted him doing karaoke at a local restaurant as she had drinks with a friend. "I'm going, damn, he's got beautiful eyes," she told the newspaper. "I mean, the eyes are the center to your soul, OK?" The same piece reports that within weeks of meeting, she had proposed to him and become pregnant with their child. According to Town & Country magazine, this is Harding's third marriage, and their son, Gordon, was born in 2011.
In an interview with Inside Edition, Price and Harding seemed very much in love. “She's kind, she loving, she's a little rough around the edges," Price told the outlet of his wife. "She's a redneck, but she's my redneck." Harding also gushed over the son she shares with Price, saying he was "the most wonderful thing in the world," and that she "couldn't imagine my world without him."
The two appear to keep a relatively low profile as far as their personal relationship goes, aside from a few comments here and there. But Marie Claire magazine reports that they still live together in Washington. What Price does for a living isn't spelled out, but Harding told the Oregonian in 2014 that she sometimes accompanies him on "woodworking jobs." And, according to NBC News, Price was described by a county official who handled the couple's marriage license as a "real nice, blue collar-type guy."
A whirlwind of attention was renewed on Harding after the release of I, Tonya, which fictionalized her life leading up to and during the infamous 1994 scandal in which rival figure skater Nancy Kerrigan was injured while leaving a practice session by a man hired by Harding's former husband, Jeff Gillooly. (He pleaded guilty to a racketeering charge related to the attack and was sentenced to two years in prison, per the Times. Harding maintains that she knew nothing of his plans, but pleaded guilty to conspiracy to hinder prosecution.)
But despite the conflicts of her past, Harding told The Hollywood Reporter that she's gotten used to living the life of a normal wife and mom. She and Price take turns taking their son to school, and they watch cartoons and play video games together, like plenty of parents do, she told the outlet, and that sense of normalcy was one of the reasons that she was hesitant to have her life reexamined in I, Tonya.
"I was grateful that [the filmmakers] actually came to us first, but I wasn't going to do it. I was like, 'I don't want to go through this again. I've been through enough, and I have my son now,'" she told THR. But ultimately, she was happy with the outcome, telling the Times in above interview that the film was "magnificent." Though she may have been reluctant to step into the public eye again, she's apparently gotten used to doing it under better circumstances, and the former skater will soon soon appear Dancing With The Stars' all-athlete season. As Price has been spotted on the red carpet with Harding in recent months, it seems like she has his support, and that the attention hasn't disturbed their peaceful life together all that much.
