Okay so, Tonya weeks (or a month or so earlier) got a death threat before a competition. Said if Harding goes on the ice she'll get a bullet in her back. The cop that warned her about the threat also said cuz the venue is so big there's no way they can protect you. It freaked Tonya out and she sat out a couple of competitions. It didn't kill her chances but slowed down her comeback.
This is when she's competing to get on the Olympic team.
Before I go any further I don't know if this movie is based on a book by an author, a book by Tonya, or just Tonya's account or like an actual investigated and researched asked everyone involved, got the FBI transcripts and reports fact based story.
The way the movie is narrated and portrayed though is as if this is what really happened. They sort of do this extended The Office documentary interview/narration for Tonya, Jeff, and Tonya's mom. Then smaller parts for Tonya's skating coach, and a reporter that covered everything (
Okay so anyway, Tonya's ex-husband, Jeff, comes up with the idea to send a death threat to Nancy Kieregan to even the odds since they were working under the assumption that this is just an escalation in the mind games fellow skating athletes do to each other. Jeff wants to mail the threats in letters. To do it right and not get caught he goes to his hilariously delusional friend Shawn, who is also Tonya's "body guard", who also thinks he's some sort of master espionage, conspiracy expert, man of the world.
Shawn gets two guys to mail the letter and tells Jeff they'll need 1k to do it. Tonya is aware of all of this. The plan is to mail a fake death threat. This is far from assault. Also while Tonya knew of this she didn't really care. She was way more focused on her comeback. She was only actively involved when Jeff wanted to find the old gym/skating rink Nancy would practice at to mail the letters from there.
Shawn goes back to Jeff and says his guys need more money to do this if not they don't do it. That's absurd cuz all they have to do is mail letters. Jeff says no and that he wants his money back. Shawn says it won't happen trying to convince Jeff to pay more. Tonya couldn't care less. She's really not involved at this point.
Shawn convinces the 2 guys to do it anyway. Unbeknownst to Jeff, Shawn actually hired these guys to assault Nancy. One guy will do it, the other is the get away driver. These guys are idiots btw.
Jeff narrates that everyone has different recollections of how this went down, many saying that Tony attacked Nancy herself. This was the rumor I believed just off of how infamous it is and how many jokes about it. However, both Tonya and Jeff were miles away and asleep when the attack went down. Neither have a clue.
So the guy stumbles into the place breaks Nancy's knee with a retractable baton, idiotically flees but are still stuck in Detroit.
News breaks, FBI investigates, Shawn reveals that it was him that sent the first death threat to Tonya that started all of this in the first place (this guy's reasoning is ridiculously insane
), Tonya then is told Nancy's assault was shawn's doing, eventually Shawn cracks and wears a wire, Tonya and Jeff are questioned, Jeff is mad paranoid.
Through a sequence of events Tonya begins to believe Jeff knew all along and goes to the the FBI and tells them what she knows (about the plan for the letters and Shawn got some guys to do it), Jeff and Shawn both plead guilty. Jeff pleads guilty to knowing who committed the assault after the fact because after he didn't go to the police he technically became an accomplice. He dqidn't plead guilty to planning an assault.
Tonya is forced to apologize just in order to get on the Olympic team. Then after the Olympics, she is also found guilty for knowing about a crime and not reporting it.
From this movie, what I got from it was Tonya had nothing to do with Nancy's assault at all. Just didn't tell who actually did do it when she found out. The only thing she's guilty of is marrying a scumbag dunbass and that her husband was friends with an even dumber dumbass scumbag who she let be her bodyguard.
