Carmen Electra Reflects on Failed Marriage to Dennis Rodman: ‘Not the Best Choice’

Carmen Electra is looking back on her marriage to Dennis Rodman.

In a new interview with Us Weekly, Electra, 54, admitted that of all the things she’s said yes to over her decades-long Hollywood career, marrying the former Chicago Bulls star, 65, was probably ill-advised.

“I could definitely say marrying Dennis Rodman could have been, like, not the best choice,” the Nation’s Dumbest star told the outlet. “I mean, it was just difficult because he had people working for him that at that time were really weird, and they assumed that everyone was out for his money. And I had my own money. I wasn’t out for Dennis Rodman’s money.”

Electra and Rodman dated in the late ’90s before getting married in Las Vegas in November 1998. Their marriage was short-lived, however, with the couple finalizing their divorce just a year later.

“By that time, I had been working with MTV, Baywatch. … I was working a lot. I was living in a really nice condo in Beverly Hills at the time that I paid for,” Electra recalled. “Independent queen. I believe in that. I think that honestly, like, you’ve got to look at life that way.”

Electra most recently opened up about her marriage to Rodman on the Legally Goff podcast in May, telling host Brooke Goff that she decided to end her marriage to the NBA legend because she was losing herself.

“It was just too hard to continue to keep up with him and his friends,” Electra shared. “It was constant drinking.”

The Scary Movie alum said it got so bad, in fact, that she was no longer able to “recognize [herself]” when she looked in the mirror.

“I had bags under my eyes. My face was puffy. I’m in my 20s! I thought, ‘It’s got to stop. It has to stop,'” she said. “I just thought, ‘I’ve got to get away from him because what good is going to come out of this?’ It was real love. It wasn’t a made-up story. It wasn’t a publicity stunt. It was real love. It’s sad, but it had to end.”

While she admitted that there were instances after their split that Rodman was “really sweet and cute” and even cried to her, she said she had to “move and change [her] number” to completely separate herself from her ex.

“[He’d] want me back,” Electra remembered. “I would just give everything [he gave me] back — not everything. I kept the things that he gave me from when we were together, but after that, I gave everything back. It was hard.”

She continued, “He would just come to my house and not leave. He’d threaten to get [expletive] again outside. I just didn’t want the police [to come]. I didn’t want it to turn into a big thing.”

Rodman, for his part, has fonder memories of their brief union, telling Page Six in 2018 that if he had the chance to ask Electra to marry him again, he would.

“If the opportunity were to pop up today, and if I saw Carmen, I would probably ask her to marry me again,” Rodman told the outlet at the time. “I have been debating about that the last couple of years. I would ask her to marry me again. I bump into her every once in a while. We don’t really talk about our past marriage, just everyday things.”

“We have a real relationship… I have that special bond with her,” he added.