How Does The ‘DWTS’ Athletes Cast Really Feel About Tonya Harding?

She’s been impressing the judges with routines that have earned high scores, and viewers seem to be willing to keep her in the competition for the time being. However, that doesn’t mean that the rest of Tonya Harding’s competitors on “Dancing With the Stars: Athletes” are thrilled she’s been a part of the season.

Fans were vocal upon the announcement that Harding, who was banned from skating in 1994 after an attack on her competitor Nancy Kerrigan, was joining the season, leading to her pro partner, Sasha Farber, posting a lengthy defense of her on Instagram. Despite an impressive score of 23/30 from the judges during Week One of the ABC competition, Harding was spared elimination at the last minute. She once again wowed the judges during Week Two, earning 33/40 points for a Quickstep. This time around, she was not listed as one of the teams in jeopardy and was safe to continue competing during Week Three.

However, while the judges, and potentially the viewers, have been seeming to come around to Harding, the reception she has received from some other members of the cast, particularly one of her fellow skaters, has been less warm.

Adam Rippon, who has quickly become a front-runner for the MirrorBall trophy, revealed in an interview with USA Today that he has tried to steer clear of Harding as much as possible.

“I’ve interacted with Tonya very limitedly,” he said. “I’m not avoiding her but I’m not not avoiding her.”

Rippon also noted that he felt it was important that people remember the reason why Harding was banned from her sport as well after the show notably glossed over the details and simply allowed her to just state that her sport was taken away from her.

“It was nice to see that she had a moment, but it’s also important to remember that skating wasn’t taken away from her—that she was banned because she was part of a bad thing,” he said. “I don’t think that we should forget that.”

Notably, Rippon’s team members for the Week Two Team Dances consisted of every other female athlete left in the competition, with the exception of Harding, who instead competed with the remaining male contestants on the show and their partners.

However, Rippon isn’t the only one who has commented on Harding’s participation. Though he has now officially been eliminated, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar didn’t hesitate to bring up Harding’s past in an interview with Access Hollywood back in April, though his comments weren’t outwardly negative towards the former skating star.

“Well, I’m not competing against Tonya in a way where she needs to break my legs so you know,” he said. “Tonya tries to get along with everybody. I found most of the people that I met in connection with this have been great. They’re friendly and we’re gonna go out there and have some fun with it.”

While Rippon has seemed less than thrilled by Harding’s appearance on the show however, his best friend, Mirai Nagasu, who is also competing and considered a front-runner for the title as well, revealed to People that despite Harding claiming she didn’t know who she was when they met, that she thought she was a nice person.

“When I met Tonya Harding, who’s also competing on the show, she didn’t know who I was. I told her that I figure skate, and she is the nicest person,” Nagasu said.

For her part, Harding seemed to also have positive things to say about Nagasu, as well as the rest of the cast, telling Parade Magazine that she found everyone to be “so supportive” compared to the skating world.

“Dancing With the Stars: Athletes” airs Mondays at 8 p.m. EDT on ABC.