by

Olympic Figure Skater And Doctor Debi Thomas Reveals She’s Broke, Living In Bug-infested Trailer In Emotional Interview

Fallen Olympic skater Debi Thomas breaks down as she asks life coach Iyanla Vanzant to help turn her life around.
Fallen Olympic skater Debi Thomas breaks down as she asks life coach Iyanla Vanzant to help turn her life around.

Fallen Olympic fig­ure skater and doc­tor Debi Thomas is now liv­ing in a bed bug-infest­ed trail­er park where she’s pen­ni­less and beg­ging for­mer fans for mon­ey, she revealed in a new interview.

The 48-year-old for­mer ath­lete has hit rock bot­tom near­ly 30 years after becom­ing the first African American to win the wom­en’s title at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships, she told Iyanla Vanzant on the rela­tion­ship expert’s “Fix My Life” series.

“(I feel) frus­trat­ed,” the once-trail­blaz­ing Thomas says before break­ing down in tears in the emo­tion­al episode that aired Saturday on the Oprah Winfrey Network.

The two-time U.S. nation­al cham­pi­on and 1988 Olympic bronze medal­ist turned to the renowned life coach after “crip­pling life chal­lenges” from two divorces left her fam­i­ly broke and forced her to shut down her med­ical prac­tice in Virginia.

A des­per­ate GoFundMe page she start­ed about 10 months ago failed to raise even a quar­ter of what she had hoped.

Debi Thomas skates during The Caesars Tribute in 2010 in Atlantic City, New Jersey in the photo on the left. She performs at the women's competition in 1988 in Calgary at the Winter Olympic Games in the photo on the right.
Debi Thomas skates dur­ing The Caesars Tribute in 2010 in Atlantic City, New Jersey in the pho­to on the left. She per­forms at the wom­en’s com­pe­ti­tion in 1988 in Calgary at the Winter Olympic Games in the pho­to on the right.

Thomas is now liv­ing in a run-down mobile home in the Appalachian Mountains with her fiancé, who has admit­ted to hav­ing alco­hol and anger issues, and his two chil­dren. She lost cus­tody of her 13-year-old son.

“You got to a point where you could­n’t afford to do any­thing oth­er than live in a trail­er. Is that what I’m hear­ing you say?” Vanzant asks before rip­ping into Thomas for only feel­ing “frus­trat­ed” at her heart­break­ing circumstances.

“Not sad, not angry, not ashamed?” the TV host asks.

“No,” Thomas responds.

Debi Thomas skates during The Caesars Tribute in 2010 in Atlantic City, New Jersey in the photo on the left. She performs at the women's competition in 1988 in Calgary at the Winter Olympic Games in the photo on the right.
Debi Thomas skates dur­ing The Caesars Tribute in 2010 in Atlantic City, New Jersey in the pho­to on the left. She per­forms at the wom­en’s com­pe­ti­tion in 1988 in Calgary at the Winter Olympic Games in the pho­to on the right.

“Not guilty that you’ve got a man, two kids and a bed­bug infes­ta­tion in a trail­er,” Vanzant says. “Frustration is what you feel? Nothing else?”

Debi Thomas and her fiance, Jamie Looney, started a GoFundMe page to ask fans for help fixing their financial struggles.
Debi Thomas and her fiancé, Jamie Looney, start­ed a GoFundMe page to ask fans for help fix­ing their finan­cial struggles.

Thomas starts to cry and shakes her head as Vanzant digs deep­er, accord­ing to a short clip.

“This is what I know: You’re liv­ing in a trail­er in the Appalachian Mountains and your son ain’t with you!” she shouts. “You’re rais­ing some­body else’s chil­dren! So, you can tell me what­ev­er you want to tell me. Telling your­self the truth is important.”

The Poughkeepsie, New York native pur­sued a med­ical degree after grad­u­at­ing from Stanford University in 1991 and soon after became an ortho­pe­dic surgeon.

Thomas lays out a list of ambi­tious prospec­tive projects she had hoped to com­plete in the fundrais­ing page that col­lect­ed about $2,000 out of the $10,000 goal. One of her plans was to star in a real­i­ty TV show.

“What we need now is help keep­ing our heads above water until we can make our dreams a real­i­ty,” she pleads in a video post­ed on the GoFundMe page.

The episode is aired on Saturday at 9 p.m.
Olympic fig­ure skater and doc­tor Debi Thomas reveals she’s broke, liv­ing in bug-infest­ed trail­er in emo­tion­al interview

3 thoughts on “Olympic Figure Skater And Doctor Debi Thomas Reveals She’s Broke, Living In Bug-infested Trailer In Emotional Interview”

  1. Debi Thomas is a lost soul and she is some­one whose intel­lect is way above the aver­age per­son, so she should not accept defeat due to her finan­cial and emo­tion­al sta­tus! She needs to get up out of that trail­er park, brush off her big ass, and take respon­si­bil­i­ty by con­trol­ling her life.

    Debi Thomas have done a great dis­ser­vice to the black com­mu­ni­ty on a whole by not being resilient and men­tal­ly strong. We know that as a peo­ple that the sys­tem is designed against us, but she’s not like the major­i­ty of black peo­ple. She was one of our stars who have failed our com­mu­ni­ty and herself.

    The sad part about her sto­ry, she accept­ed defeat and will­ing to be a vic­tim of her own cir­cum­stances. Instead of ris­ing to the occa­sion and use her lead­er­ship skills to over­come this obsta­cle and set back.

    • There just seem to be much more to this sto­ry that I’m not get­ting Chris.
      She is an Orthopedic sur­geon why would she not be work­ing at her profession ?
      Why is she liv­ing in a trail­er park with a white bum?
      or is she one of those black women who was too good for black men after she attained some success?
      And prob­a­bly most impor­tant­ly how the hell did she lose cus­tody of her son?

  2. Peeps . one word bad choic­es , thats the bot­tom line . She is liv­ing with a man who has issues , the only place she will be going is down . I dont think a per­son­’s eth­nic choice of spouse is rel­e­vant here . If a man or woman wants mar­ry black pink or pur­ple thats their choice . She needs to deal with the root of her prob­lem and as an intel­li­gent woman , assum­ing she is , she is capa­ble of ratio­nal­iz­ing above aver­age intel­li­gent peo­ple and find a solu­tion to her prob­lem . I agree Mike there is more to the sto­ry than meets the eye . Wasted oppor­tu­ni­ty and she exac­er­bates the sit­u­a­tion by mak­ing bad choic­es . Blame no one but herself .

Comments are closed.