Post by Admin on Nov 9, 2015 18:55:42 GMT -4
In happier times as a famous ice skater And here just a lost soul in life
In 1988, Debi Thomas made history as the first African-American athlete to win a medal at the Winter Olympics, taking home the bronze medal for Ladies’ Singles. She went on to become an orthopedic surgeon. But since then, things have unraveled and Thomas is now speaking out about her dire current situation.
"Suddenly, you're like, 'I can't even pay my phone bill, I can't even pay this,’” Thomas, 48, told Good Morning America on Monday, Nov. 9, of her current financial status. "People don't understand; anybody could suddenly lose, you know, their money. Anybody can."
Thomas does not currently have a job and said she is not interested in going back into medicine. She and her fiancé, Jamie Looney, are living in what was previously a bed bug-infested trailer. She attributes her current predicament to the high legal fees surrounding her divorce from her second husband, Chris Bequette, and the costly child support. Her 18-year-old son Christopher is now in college.
American figure skater Debi Thomas performs her long program during the women's competition 27 February 1988 in Calgary at the Winter Olympic Games.
Thomas’ situation first came to light when she and Looney appeared on the OWN Network’s Iyanla: Fix My Life to work out their issues surrounding Looney’s alcohol and anger problems.
“He did punch me,” she told host Iyanla Vanzant in the episode, which was taped 10 months ago.
“We figured it out,” she told GMA of her relationship. “Do we still push each others’ buttons sometimes? Yes.”
But Looney claims he has remained sober for six months and that there have been no more cases of domestic abuse. The couple created a GoFundMe page "as an emergency fund for Dr. Debi Thomas, her fiancé, Jamie Looney, and their family to restore financial stability after severe sudden financial losses over the past couple of years associated with a combination of financially crippling life challenges."
Miss Thomas made it to this page because it's sad how one minute you can be on top of the world and then sink so low to the bottom. This happen to her she had everything but somehow her world just caved in all around her no longer able to have her son who by now could be a young man but she just couldn't take care of him. Living on a trailer park with bedbugs and dirt isn't something I think she was use to but when you feel nothing you sometime become nothing in the mind. While watching her I felt this was how her life felt now just the lost of her sense of self. Just a sad ending all away around................Candy
