Dennis Rodman

American basketball small forward and power forward, nicknamed "the Worm", he played for the Detroit Pistons (1986-1993), San Antonio Spurs (1993-1995), Chicago Bulls (1995-1998), Los Angeles Lakers (1999), and Dallas Mavericks (2000) of the National Basketball Association (NBA).

By 1993 he had two championship rings on his way to a second straight rebounding title. He had played in two All-Star games and was the NBA Defensive Player of the Year twice. He was wildly popular in Detroit, loved what he did and the adulation that went with it. He had it all, a Ferrari, name recognition, money, fame and glory.

Yet, on an April night in 1993, he debated killing himself with a shotgun. It was his seventh and last season with the Pistons and the team was going downhill fast. He was making $2.5 million a year and looking at the guys who were making ten times that, feeling out in the cold and sorry for himself. Always flamboyant, always an exhibitionist, always driven, he decided in that conversation with his shotgun that he was going to be whoever and whatever he wanted to be. From bottoming out, he emerged with a fuller identity.

The first thing he did was bleach his hair blond. The fans went nuts. When he was in college he had stuck quarters in his ears to get attention. Now he went over the top. He moved on to pink hair, a ring in his nose, multiple earrings, painted fingernails. Sometimes he wore women's clothing, "exploring his feminine side." He said that a sequined halter top and tight leather shorts "made him feel like a whole person, not just one-dimensional." Rodman's second book, released in 1997, Walk on the Wild Side, was full of sex and obscenities, so much so that Oprah Winfrey cancelled an appearance that Rodman was scheduled to do on her show. Included in the work were details of his affair with a transsexual and the reasons for which he dates white women versus black women, as well as other information about his "identity.