Inside the crazy world of Dennis Rodman – the bad boy of basketball who married himself, bedded 2,000 women and is ‘soul mates’ with Kim Jong-un
HE was the baddest man in basketball who dated Madonna, bedded 2,000 women, married HIMSELF and bragged Kim Jong-un was his 'soul mate'.
It's fair to say Dennis Rodman is not your everyday sports star - and his life story is as shocking as he was brilliant on the court.
Dennis Keith Rodman was born in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1961 to Shirley and Philander Rodman - who was later to ditch his family and move to the Philippines.
Rodman has so many brothers and sisters his dad lost count. It's reported he has either 26 or 28 siblings on his father's side.
After an unhappy childhood the "shy" and "introverted" youngster left school measuring just 5ft 6ins and became a janitor at Dallas International Airport.
However, after a bizarre height spurt a family friend tipped off the head Basketball coach of nearby Cooke County College.
Within a year he was a college sports star and his outstanding playing stats started catching the eyes of NBA scouts.
It was the start of a sporting career which would see non-conformist Rodman change the image of basketball forever.
Throughout the 1990s he was one of the NBA's biggest stars famed for his on-court skills and off-court fashion sense, outlandish hairstyles and wild personal life...
Rodman's bizarre sex life and famous girlfriends
Rodman's outrageous sex life is the stuff of legend - and he really does claim to have done it all.
In his 1997 book 'Bad As I Wanna Be' Rodman tells how he didn't have sex until he was 20 when a prostitute "did" him and his friends "for twenty bucks."
However, since then it is fair to say he has made up for lost time.
He claimed while he was dating Madonna in the mid 1990s, the pop queen used to send him x-rated faxes begging to have his baby.
Then there was the time Rodman broadcast himself having sex with six women in a Hamptons hotel room after he forgot to turn off a cordless microphone in his pocket.
The basketball giant also claimed his sex sessions with film star wife Carmen Electra used to "last for days".
The pair got hitched in November 1998 at the Little Chapel of Flowers in Las Vegas. Carmen filed for divorce the following April.
In his book 'I Should Be Dead By Now' Rodman devoted entire sections telling all kinds of weird sex stories - the craziest one involved him bedding a bride-to-be at her hen party.
He also claims to have broken his penis THREE TIMES during sex - with one lover thinking she had killed him because of all the blood.
The 6ft 7ins sports legend has since claimed to have bedded 2,000 women but considers about 500 of them to be "gold diggers."
Finally declaring himself fed up with women he then claimed he was bisexual and married himself in a bizarre ceremony to promote yet another book.
His supersonic and controversial basketball career
Rodman played for the Detroit Pistons, San Antonio Spurs, Chicago Bulls, LA Lakers and the Dallas Mavericks in a topsy-turvy career which lasted 12 years.
He was nicknamed “The Worm” famous for his aggressive defensive and rebound abilities.
During his time at Detroit became one of the elite teams in the NBA. The club won the championship in 1989 and again in 1990.
However, Rodman ruffled a lot of feathers in 1987 when he claimed that the only reason Larry Bird won three MVP awards was "because he's white."
Rodman was selected to the 1990 NBA All-Star team and tapped as defensive player of the year that same season. In 1992 he won the first of seven consecutive rebounding crowns.
In 1993, following the retirement of Daly, Rodman's relationship with the Pistons organisation soured and he was traded to the San Antonio Spurs.
Prior to the 1995-96 season, Rodman was traded again, this time to the Chicago Bulls, where he'd go on to team up with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen to win three consecutive NBA titles.
However while at the Bulls he landed himself in hot water after headbutting a referee on the court - which landed him with a $200,000 fine.
In 1997 he hit the headlines again after kicking a TV cameraman in the groin after he took a tumble on court.
Following his tenure in Chicago, Rodman signed with the Los Angeles Lakers for a brief run late in the 1999 season. He concluded his playing career the following year with the Dallas Mavericks.
In all, Rodman would finish with five NBA championships, two All-Star appearances, and twice be named the league's top defensive player. In 2011, he was inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame.
His money problems and career after basketball
During his basketball career Rodman is reported to have earned $30m in wages alone. He's now said to be worth just $500,000.
During his time as an NBA star he is also believed to have earned tens of millions in lucrative sponsorship, TV and book deals.
However in recent years his assets have been eaten up by a series of unfortunate business decisions and sometimes just bad luck.
In 2012, he appeared in court to face charges that he owed more than $800,000 in child support to an ex wife.
Rodman's lawyers claimed at the time that the former superstar was completely broke and could not pay a dime.
Since then he has appeared in numerous reality TV shows, including Celebrity Big Brother in the UK, Celebrity Mole, which he won taking the $220,000 first prize, and Celebrity Apprentice in 2013.
He has worked on voice-overs for The Simpsons and appeared in the TV show ‘3rd Rock From The Sun’.
He has also appeared in several films and briefly had his own MTV reality chat show - The Rodman World Tour.
His bizarre friendship with North Korea's Kim Jong-un
Rodman made his first trip to North Korea in 2013 with Vice Media correspondent Ryan Duffy, to host basketball exhibitions.
He met Kim Jong-un there and later declared him "a friend for life" before suggesting President Barack Obama call the leader due to their shared love of basketball.
Describing his bromance, Rodman told Good Morning Britain: "I hang out with him all the time.
"We laugh, we sing karaoke, we do a lot of cool things together like skiing and riding horses."
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At Pyongyang’s Indoor Stadium in 2014, he previously met the leader Kim Jong-un while watching an exhibition match between US players and North Korean players.
In July, 2013, Rodman told Sports Illustrated: "My mission is to break the ice between hostile countries. Why it’s been left to me to smooth things over, I don’t know."
Since then he has made a few visits to the country - with the most recent being June 2017, taking the tally up to around five trips.
He was sponsored by a currency for legalised marijuana and wore branded t-shirts to travel in.