The Demolition Man Myth Dennis Rodman Wants Everyone To Stop Believing

Basketball superstar Dennis Rodman first began playing professionally when he was drafted by the Detroit Pistons in 1986. He had played basketball in high school, but only on and off. When he was 17, he experienced an unexpected growth spurt, quickly going from 5'11" to 6'7". He decided to attend college and began pursuing basketball more seriously. He was only 25 when he began playing for the Pistons, and became famous for his hustle. In the early 1990s, Rodman — to combat a bout of extreme depression — reinvented himself as the NBA's "bad boy" and began dying his hair wild colors, getting tattoos, and multiple facial piercings. 

Last year, on the "Got Sole" interview program, Rodman talked about his life and his career ... and also his hair. Rodman, as stated, often stepped onto the basketball court with blonde or green hair, freshly bleached and/or dyed for the game. It was a striking look, to be sure. Some noticed that Rodman, with his bleached hair, looked a lot like Simon Phoenix, Wesley Snipes' villain character from Marco Brambilla's 1993 sci-fi film "Demolition Man." Some people even began to spread rumors that Rodman was a huge "Demolition Man" fan, and that he bleached his hair specifically to look like Simon Phoenix. It's a piece of trivia on IMDb, even. 

On "Got Sole," Rodman wanted to set the record straight. No, he didn't bleach his hair to look like Simon Phoenix.

"Demolition Man," for this unlucky enough not to have seen it, is a dystopian drama set in 2032 after the city of San Angeles has been "cleaned up" by a Right Wing televangelist. The crime rate is nil, no one swears, and unhealthy foods are against the law. Sylvester Stallone plays a tough-as-nails cop named John Spartan who is cryogenically frozen in a high-tech prison 1996, and thawed in 2032. Snipes plays Simon Phoenix, John Spartan's charismatic ultra-criminal nemesis, similarly frozen and thawed. Phoenix sported a bleached blonde flattop, carefully sculpted on his head.

Rodman, however, wasn't inspired by Snipes. Indeed, he tells a story on "Got Sole" that he was wandering around a mall in San Antonio, Texas when he got a wild hair to, well, get wild hair. Evidently, he was approached in the mall by an enormous, long-haired hairstylist who wanted to dye Rodman's hair. Rodman figured, "why not?" Rodman slept through the experience (!) and claimed he didn't even look at his reflection on the way out. It was only then that he and his friends decided to go see a movie. And, wouldn't you know it...:

"We go to the movies. We happened to pick this one particular movie, out of all the movies on the damn planet. So we walk in, and I see Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes. I'm like 'This is not f***in' funny, right? Is this real?' It was 'Demolition Man.'"

Rodman, by sheer coincidence, got his hair dyed like Simon Phoenix right before seeing "Demolition Man." Rodman was not inspired by the movie.