Former Skater Johnny Weir Has Not Forgiven Tonya Harding: ‘She Did a Horrible Thing’

Hollywood may have forgiven Tonya Harding, but Johnny Weir says the figure skating community will not be so generous.

Harding was praised at Sunday’s Golden Globes by I, Tonya cast member Allison Janney for her openness and bravery, and she received roaring applause from the A-list crowd. But inside the skating community, Weir told TMZ that athletes see her in a different light.

“She did a horrible, horrible thing,” Weir, a two-time Olympic figure skating champion, said. “She’s a pariah in our sport and she shouldn’t be forgiven for basically, possibly having the opportunity of ruining somebody’s life.”

In I, Tonya, Harding is portrayed as a broken character; she was the victim of abuse and says her creative spirit and individuality was constantly town down.

“What this movie did is tell a story about class in America, tell a story about the disenfranchised, tell the story about a woman who was not embraced for her individuality, tell a story about truth and the perception of truth in the media and truths we all tell ourselves,” Janney said in her acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress playing Harding’s abusive mother LaVona Golden. “It’s an extraordinary movie, and I’m so proud of it.”

But within the skating community, it seems Weir and his fellow skaters cannot look past the part she allegedly played in injuring skater Nancy Kerrigan in 1994 ahead of the Olympic games.

“Unless you’re a skater, an athlete, you can’t really understand,” Weir said.

Just ahead of the 24th anniversary of the attack on Kerrigan, Harding admitted for the first time that she was aware of a potential plot to attack another skater.

“I knew something was up,” Harding said in a clip from the ABC special Truth and Lies: The Tonya Harding Story. She continues to deny playing a role in the planning or executing the attack, “I did, however, overhear them talking about stuff where, “Well, maybe we should take somebody out to make sure she gets on the team.’ I go, ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ “

Kerrigan had been practicing for the 1994 U.S. Figure Skating Championships when she was clubbed in the knee while walking off the ice. The attacker was identified as Shane Stant, who authorities later learned had been hired by Harding’s husband, Jeff Gillooly, and her bodyguard, Shawn Eckdart, to break Kerrigan’s leg so she couldn’t compete at the Olympics.

“It makes you cringe hearing it, because you know how much that it had to have hurt,” Harding said.

Following the scandal and Harding’s guilty plea for conspiring to hinder prosecution of the attackers, she was stripped of her 1994 US Championship title and was banned from participating in US Figure Skating Association events as a skater or coach for life.

Truth and Lies: The Tonya Harding Story airs on Jan. 11 at 9 p.m. ET on ABC.