Trinity Rodman is tired of being asked about her dad.
By this point in her career, the 22-year-old U.S. women’s soccer team star is used to the questions. It’s hard to avoid. Her father — Basketball Hall of Famer Dennis Rodman — is one of the most famous American athletes.
Only hours after winning an Olympic gold medal in Paris at the 2024 Olympics, “Today” show host Hoda Kotb asked Rodman in a live prime-time interview if her dad called her after the victory. Rodman rolled her eyes before delivering a flat response: “Nope, but my mom was there.”
In an episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast released Wednesday, Rodman said that type of bluntness is how she plans to answer future questions about her relationship with her father.
“I’ve tried to make it obvious that I don’t know,” Rodman said on the podcast. “I don’t know how he’s feeling, I don’t know where he is. For my own sanity, getting those questions, it frustrates me.”
Rodman never embraced the public connection to her father, but she was reluctant to explain why. On the podcast, she gave a full explanation for her estrangement from her dad, which she said stems from a lifelong pattern of financial and emotional neglect.
“That’s not disrespect,” Rodman said. “He’s not a dad. He’s a person, he’s not a dad. Maybe by blood, but nothing else.”
Dennis Rodman married Trinity’s mother, Michelle Moyer, in 2003 after the birth of their son DJ in 2001 and Trinity in 2002. Within a year, Moyer filed for divorce. Moyer spent a decade attempting to repair their relationship, but when the divorce was finalized in 2012, Dennis’ support vanished.
Trinity Rodman said he would drop in for random visits a few times a year — lavishing his children with attention and presents — but didn’t help with rent or school bills. For months, the two kids lived with their mother in their Ford Expedition SUV, sleeping in a motel for a few nights each week whenever Moyer could afford it. Rodman relied on scholarships and support from coaches to sustain her youth soccer career before the Washington Spirit drafted her with the No. 2 pick in 2021, making her at age 18 the youngest player selected in NWSL draft history.
“Thank God I was talented or else I don’t know where I would be,” Rodman said on the podcast.
Even throughout the estranged years, Trinity and DJ continued to show up for public events, including Dennis’ Hall of Fame enshrinement in 2012. Each time the camera cut to the crowd, a 9-year-old Trinity beamed at her father on stage. Dennis became emotional as he spoke to his family, admitting that his greatest regret was being a poor father to his children.
That’s a refrain that Dennis has repeated — and one that earned an eye roll from Rodman.
“Do I believe him? Yeah, I do believe that he wishes he could fight his demons,” Rodman said on the podcast. “I roll my eyes because it’s like, you hear something so many times, but he does nothing to change it. ‘I wish I was a better dad.’ He said that in so many interviews, I could pull them up. It’s like, OK, then do something.”
Rodman said she’s trying to accept the reality of her relationship with her father. But she’s still angry. She still resents his absence. And it’s difficult to exist in a sports entertainment environment that clamors for her father.
When Chicago Sky star Angel Reese arrived to a rivalry game against the Indiana Fever in Dennis’ Detroit Pistons jersey this summer, the small gesture dredged up complicated emotions.
“He is a really famous basketball player,” Rodman said on the podcast. “And like style-wise, everything, inspiring. But I think as a daughter seeing that, it’s like — no shade, but it’s like, damn, I wish that was me. I was like, damn, I wish I was taking a picture with him. I wish I was wearing his jersey.”
The erraticism that defined Dennis’ years with the 1990s Bulls continued long after his retirement from the NBA in 2000. Rodman said she consistently learns more about her father’s life from headlines than from the man himself.
While Rodman knows how she wants to navigate speaking about her father publicly, she’s still figuring out how to handle their relationship.
She picks up the phone whenever he calls. It’s a rare occurrence, three or four times a year at most. Typically, Rodman said, his first question is about how her mom is doing.
“We tried to be that foundation and to be the good people around him,” Rodman said on the podcast. “In reality, we never really asked for anything unless we really needed it. Me, my mom and my brother, it was like — we just want you. For him, he’s never understood that people could actually just want to be around him and just want to make him happy.”
