Former N.B.A. player Dennis Rodman is back from a much-publicized trip to North Korea, and taking credit for the nation’s recent release of an imprisoned American student. On Friday, ABC’s Michael Strahan sat down with the onetime Chicago Bull to talk about the bizarre trip, which coincided with the release of Otto Warmbier, the 22-year-old University of Virginia student held in detention for 17 months after allegedly attempting to steal a propaganda poster in Pyongyang. Warmbier died on Monday, less than a week after returning home in a coma.
The State Department has said that Rodman had no hand in the student’s release—and Warmbier’s father reiterated that point to ABC. Still, Rodman believes he did. He told Strahan, “I was just so happy to see the kid released. Later that day, that’s when we found out he was ill, no one knew that. We jumped up and down. Some good things came of this trip.”
Rodman’s agent, Chris Volo, who went to North Korea as well and was on hand during the interview, was even more adamant about their role in Warmbier’s return. Before they went, Volo told Strahan, he “asked on behalf of Dennis for [Warmbier’s] release three times.”
“I know being there had something to do with it,“ Volo added. ”I said to them, we would need some type of good faith if we’re ever going to do some type of future sports relations. They said they understood.“
Doctors at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center said that Warmbier’s condition upon release was one of unresponsive wakefulness, suggestive of neurological damage. His exact cause of death will likely remain a mystery as his parents requested that no autopsy be performed. Strahan pushed Rodman on his enduring friendship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un despite the dictator’s alleged human-rights violations. Rodman maintains his relationship is not “about the political side.”
“I think people don’t see him as a friendly guy,” Rodman said of Kim, who is close to conducting his sixth nuclear test. Rodman, who says they sing karaoke and ride horses together, added that the world would see a different side of him “if you actually talk to him.”
