The world is full of people whose professional relationships have developed into something much deeper and more personal. Nancy Kerrigan is one of these people, as she is married to Jerry Solomon, her former agent. Nancy is an actress and former Olympic figure skater with the titles and awards that prove it. In the early and mid-90s, she was in her prime and thrilled the audience with her skills on the ice. During her career, she won bronze, silver, and gold medals.
During and after her professional career she also had some screen and TV actions.
Nancy Kerrigan Biography
Nancy, who is the only daughter of her parents, was born in Stoneham, Massachusetts, on October 13, 1969. Her parents Daniel Kerrigan and Brenda Kerrigan had two boys older than Nancy, Michael, and Mark. The former Olympic athlete comes from an obviously helpful and athletically minded family. While her brothers started with hockey, she concentrated on figure skating when she was six years old. When she was eight years old, she started taking private lessons with her coach Theresa Martin, while her father Daniel drove the hockey shoe at the local ice rink as payment for Nancy’s lessons. A year later, her lessons seemed to pay off when she won the Boston Open.
While working on her skating, she attended Stoneham High School and then earned a degree in economics at Emmanuel College in Boston. Until she was 16 years old, she was under the guardianship of Theresa Martin. She then moved on to Denise Morrissey before joining Evy and Mary Scotvold. They remained her trainers for the rest of her competitive career.
In 1987, young Kerrigan finished fourth in the junior category of the US Figure Skating Championships. Over the years, she continued to improve and climb up the national ranks. But it was only after the elimination of the “compulsory figure” aspect of the game in 1990 that she was able to really climb to the heights. By then she was already fourth in the national rankings.
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Kerrigan’s reputation continued to grow in 1991 when she finished third in the U.S. Figure Skating Championship behind her teammates Tonya Harding (silver) and Kristi Yamaguchi (gold). At the 1992 edition of the tournament, she surpassed this with second place. In the same year, she also won a bronze and a silver medal at the Winter Olympics and the World Championships respectively.
In 1993 Kerrigan became U.S. Champion after the reigning champion Kristi Yamaguchi retired. But that was the only good thing that happened to her career that year, because from then on everything went downhill. Her catastrophic performances brought her back to fifth place in the world rankings. In the meantime, she had some good news in her life off the ice before that time. She had signed lucrative contracts with big brands like Evian, Seiko, Reebok, etc.
To prepare for the 1994 Winter Olympics, she decided to cancel everything else and concentrate exclusively on her training. She also hired a sports psychologist to help her cope with the competitive pressure.
The year began with a bitter note for Kerrigan. On January 6, 1994, she was attacked with a police baton after a training session. The perpetrator was Shane Stant, the husband of her rival Tonya Harding. Immediately after the attack he was recorded on tape and arrested. Kerrigan was forced to retire from the US championships, but she recovered from the leg injuries she had sustained fast enough to compete in the 1994 Winter Olympics. Tonya received three-year probation, 500 hours of community service, and was fined $100,000.
The attack has since been adapted several times and broadcast by major networks such as ESPN and NBC. It was also made into a film called I, Tonya.
She won the silver medal in the individual women’s race at the Olympic Games. However, she later lost this title and her gold medal after a small controversy between her compatriot Oksana Baiul and one of the judges, Jan Hoffmann.
Kerrigan resigned from amateur competition at the end of the 1994 Olympics. She continued to participate in the Ice Wars and several other professional competitions. However, she worked more on various ice shows such as Champions on Ice, Broadway on Ice, and the musical Footloose. She also memorably hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live in 1994, featuring musical icon Aretha Franklin. She has also appeared in Fox’s television show Skating with Celebrities (2006), the comedy feature Blades of Glory (2007), and Dancing with the Stars (2005).
In 2004, she became a member of the United States Figure Skater Hall of Fame and was honored at the annual benefit gala of the Ice Theatre of New York in 2008.
Family – Parents, Brother, Husband, Children
Nancy Kerrigan had a lot to deal with on the personal front while dealing with the stress of her career. A year after her retirement, she walked down the aisle with her agent Jerry Solomon, who was married three times and has a son from a second marriage. The marriage produced three children: Matthew (1996), Brian (2005), and Nicole (2008). The former professional skater revealed in early 2017 that the process of giving birth to her three children resulted in six miscarriages. She admits that this was a strain on her marriage.
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On 24 January 2010, her father Daniel passed away. Her older brother Mark was charged with her father’s death. However, Kerrigan and her family stood by him and supported him. The manslaughter charge was eventually dropped and Mark was charged with assault because of the argument that had taken place between him and his father before his death. He was sentenced to two and a half years with six months probation.
She also set up a foundation, the Nancy Kerrigan Foundation, which cares for the visually impaired. This was done in honor of her mother, Brenda Kerrigan, who was blind before the law.
What is Nancy Kerrigan’s Net Worth?
Nancy’s career may not have been as long as that of some of her contemporaries, but apart from her medals and titles, she signed some sponsorship contracts that did not harm her net worth.
Throughout her career, she represented famous brands such as Evian, Reebok, Campbell’s Soup, and Seiko. These included the popular designer Vera Wang, who made the skating outfits she wore on the ice; Walt Disney’s $2 million contracts, and a reported $9.5 million contract that came after her attack in 1994.
Numerous online sources put the net worth of Nancy Kerrigan at $8 million.