Dennis Rodman Apologizes to Daughter Trinity After She Says He’s Only Her Dad ‘by Blood’

Dennis Rodman issued a public apology to his estranged daughter Trinity Rodman after the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team star opened up about their relationship this week, saying her NBA father is “not a dad” and that his relationship with her is “by blood but nothing else.”

The elder Rodman, who played 14 seasons in the NBA, posted a lengthy apology on Instagram late Wednesday night, writing to Trinity: “Sorry I wasn’t the Dad you wanted me to be but either way I still tried and I still try and never will stop.”

“I will keep trying even when you’re being told as an adult not to respond to my phone calls,” the NBA Hall of Famer continued in the message to his daughter. “I will try even when it’s difficult and if it takes a long time. I’m always here and tell you all the time rather it’s your voice or voicemail how proud I am. I always had one wish and it was I wish my kids would call me and come see me. Hopefully one day I can get that.”

The elder Rodman pleaded with Trinity, 22, to “pick up the phone.”

“You have my number, you see me calling,” he wrote. “I’m still here.”

Rodman’s apology to his daughter was accompanied by a video scanning over a pile of photos of them together over the years.

Trinity made headlines earlier Wednesday when she said opened up about her estranged relationship with her father during an appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast with Alex Cooper.

“He’s a person. He’s not a dad,” Trinity said. “Maybe by blood, but nothing else.”

The Washington Spirit star, who also plays for the USWNT, said she didn’t intend to speak “negatively” about her father but was trying to be “more realistic about” their relationship.

Trinity said her mother, Michelle Moyer, had initially tried to stay with her father but knew it wasn’t best for Trinity or her brother DJ, 23.

“We tried to live with him, but he’s having parties 24/7. He’s bringing random bitches in,” the Olympic gold medalist soccer star said. “My mom didn’t want — she was strong enough to deal with it because even to this day, I still believe that my dad hasn’t loved anyone after my mom.”

Trinity said she believes her mom “just saw the situation of, ‘We love each other. It’s not gonna work’ and that Moyer didn’t want her kids seeing their father “embarrass me this way and have the party scene all the time.”

Moyer filed for divorce from Rodman in 2004. By the time the marriage officially dissolved in 2012, Trinity said she and her brother were seeing their father “once, two, three, four times a year.”

During her interview Wednesday, Trinity said at one point early on in her career, she broke down in tears while on the field during a Spirit game after realizing her father showed up to the game uninvited.

Her father noted in his apology Wednesday that he still watches his daughter’s games “all the time” and that in one instance he watched a game from a nearby “hotel balcony” because he was asked not to come to the game in person because “of who I was with” at the time.

Trinity also opened up about her father’s struggles with substance abuse, calling him an “alcoholic,” and said he cut off her family financially at one point following his divorce with Moyer, forcing her, Trinity, and DJ to live in an “SUV” for a brief period of time.

“I think he’s an extremely selfish human being,” Trinity said. “I think everything has always been about him.”