During an interview with New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, “Shark Tank” host and billionaire Mark Cuban said “why not” when asked if he would send Dennis Rodman to North Korea to negotiate with Kim Jong Un.
Rodman, now 56, first visited North Korea and Kim Jong Un in January 2014.
During that trip, Rodman notoriously sang “Happy Birthday” to the dictator and referred to him as his “best friend.”
Rodman also embarked on what he referred to as “basketball diplomacy,” playing pick-up games there with other NBA stars.
On June 13, 2017, Rodman returned to North Korea for a sports-related visit.
Rodman met with national Olympic athletes, watched a men’s basketball game, visited a state-run orphanage, met with North Korea’s Minister of Sports and handed off several gifts for Kim Jong Un, despite never seeing him during the duration of his visit.
Kim Jong Un is reportedly an NBA fan, specifically of the Chicago Bulls. Rodman famously played for the Bulls in the late 1990s.
(Dennis Rodman/Twitter)
In a previous interview with DuJour magazine, Dennis Rodman had praised North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for turning North Korea into a “24th century country.”
“He is changing North Korea so much it is really becoming a 24th century country now,” Rodman told the magazine. “It’s more like they took down the Flintstone Age and put in the Jetsons. Out with the old, in with the new.”
The day before President Donald Trump made his planned visit to South Korea, Rodman asked Trump to make peace with North Korea.
(TMZ/Twitter)
“Donald Trump, please, help us,” Rodman told TMZ Sports. “You always say, ‘Unite.’ I’m all about that.”
