Carmen Electra reflected on why her marriage to NBA icon Dennis Rodman crumbled within six months.
“It was just too hard to continue to keep up with him and his friends,” Electra, 54, admitted on the Tuesday, May 26, episode of the “Legally Goff” podcast. “It was constant drinking.”
The former couple had a whirlwind relationship that started with a chance meeting at a club. Rodman, 65, and Electra exchanged vows at the famous Little Chapel of the Flowers in Las Vegas, Nevada, in November 1998, but he sought an annulment nine days later.
While the two briefly reconciled, Electra ultimately moved forward with a divorce in April 1999. (Rodman was previously married to Annie Bakes in 1992 and later was with third wife Michelle Moyer from 2003 to 2012. Electra wed rocker Dave Navarro in 2003 before they split four years later.)
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Electra described a chaotic lifestyle with Rodman where he was “so loving, and then he’s wild and he’s drinking.” (Rodman has been open about his struggle with alcohol over the years, having entered treatment programs on multiple occasions.)
“Looking at myself in the mirror, I was at home, and I didn’t recognize myself,” Electra said of the final days of her marriage to Rodman. “I had bags under my eyes. My face was puffy. I’m in my 20s! I thought, ‘It’s got to stop. It has to stop.’”
A friend gave Electra a self-help book around that time and she realized it was in her best interest to move on with her life.
“I just thought, ‘I’ve got to get away from him because what good is going to come out of this?’” she asked herself. “It was real love. It wasn’t a made-up story. It wasn’t a publicity stunt. It was real love.”
She added, “It’s sad but it had to end.”
Electra insisted that “there were times” after their split when Rodman showed her a softer side by “being really sweet and cute and cry[ing].”
“[He’d] want me back,” she admitted. “I would just give everything [he gave me] back — not everything. I kept the things that he gave me from when we were together but after that, I gave everything back. It was hard.”
The Baywatch alum said that she eventually had to “move and change my number” in order to make a firm break from Rodman.
“He would just come to my house and not leave,” she alleged. “He’d threaten to get naked again outside. I just didn’t want the police [to come]. It didn’t want it to turn into a big thing.”
Us Weekly has reached out to Rodman’s rep for comment.
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During an October 2014 appearance on Where Are They Now?, Electra reflected on her time with Rodman as one of “the worst” periods of her life.
“Our relationship was very passionate. When it was good, it was amazing,” she said at the time. “And when it was bad, it was the worst.”
On that same Where Are They Now? show, Rodman insisted that he was on amicable terms with Electra despite the highly-publicized nature of their breakup.
“I try to live with women. I can’t,” he admitted in 2013. “It’s just too hard. When you get involved with someone like me, you have to expect a lot of things.”
