It’s more appropriate this week than at any time since he wriggled his way past larger men for rebounds in the 90’s that Dennis Rodman is nicknamed “The Worm.” The “loud, flamboyant, brash, [and] brilliant” former NBA star (as his Hall of Fame biography describes him) has made himself an unofficial part of this week’s North Korea-United States summit, thanks to his peculiar five-year relationship with Kim Jong-un and admiration for Donald Trump. “He is willing to offer his support for his friends,” Rodman’s agent Darren Prince told CNN. His expression of such support is a trip to Singapore that coincides with the meeting between the two heads of state.
But what is Rodman going to do there? His representatives at Prince Marketing Group and his trip sponsor PotCoin (more on them in a moment) did not respond to a request for such information, but it’s likely that he will be a harmless sideshow. (A Trump administration official and a State Department official both told CNN that Rodman wasn’t part of any official government business.) Yet Rodman’s ties to the Kim regime are still fascinating. As far as can be known, he has spent more face time with the reclusive despot since assuming the reins from his father than any American alive.
Their first encounter was in February 2013. Back then (as it has been whenever he returned), Rodman was a corporate instrument. Vice News, which was an underground upstart, used him as a means to gain access to the country.
Knowing that the Kims were hoops enthusiasts—Kim Jong-il was a fan of the Chicago Bulls, for whom Rodman won three championships—Vice “worked through official and back channels to propose a goodwill game of basketball with North Korea’s national team,” Vice cofounder Shane Smith explained. “If they accepted, we would bring three members of the Harlem Globetrotters, who are the most natural ambassadors of goodwill in the game, and a real-life Chicago Bull.” Vice wanted Jordan. They got Rodman. But the pitch worked anyway: Rodman watched the exhibition seated next to Kim, he and the American delegation were Kim’s guests for a postgame feast, and Vice got a story about North Korea filmed inside North Korea.
“I’m sorry that my country and your country are not on good terms,” Rodman told the packed stadium after the game. “But for me and the country, you have a friend for life. Sir,” he said, turning to face Kim, “thank you. You have a friend for life.” The last sentence was translated to the audience as: “I believe myself to be the Great Leader’s sincere friend.” Since then, Rodman has certainly acted like a sincere friend, speaking about the murderous tyrant in astonishingly gentle terms.
“You know, throughout the day, we’re all human beings. It’s funny, though, that I don’t see how people can sit there and say that this person is a ‘madman.’ He probably is, but I didn’t see that,” Rodman told Stephen Colbert during an interview in December 2017. Rodman was wearing a PotCoin.com t-shirt with an illustration of Rodman standing between Trump and the American flag and Kim and the North Korean flag, with the word “UNITE” below.
PotCoin had sponsored a trip to Asia that Rodman took just days before the segment aired, bragging in a press release that it had “received numerous requests through social media and its website asking for renewed support to send Rodman in hopes of bringing peace.” It also backed an earlier jaunt Rodman made to North Korea in June, when he was photographed during travel wearing a plain black PotCoin t-shirt and hat.
What possible interest could a company such as PotCoin have in Dennis Rodman’s relationship with Pyongyang? In January 2017, the Associated Press reported that the marijuana news industry was “hailing the North as a pothead paradise and maybe even the next Amsterdam of pot tourism. They’ve reported North Korean marijuana to be legal, abundant and mind-blowingly cheap, sold openly to Chinese and Russian tourists at a major market on the North’s border for about $3 a pound.”
Per data from the crypto market tracker CoinMarketCap, PotCoin, which was released in 2014, briefly traded at an all-time high in June 2017 after Rodman arrived in Beijing to fly to Pyongyang. It’s spiked four times since, including December 14, the day after the Colbert interview.
Rodman tweeted on Monday afternoon that he had arrived in Singapore for his latest lurch into American-North Korean relations. He was sporting a new style. But with the same logo.
