Dennis Rodman is out of alcohol-rehab center, but the former NBA badboy insists he was never there for the reason everyone seemed to presume.
"I needed to decompress from all the things I was going through," Rodman told ESPN, insisting he was not there because he has a drinking problem. Rodman later added of the recent trip he made to North Korea to stage a charity basketball game for which he was much maligned "I was trying to get this game going and get everything going in North Korea. It was a lot."
ESPN reports Rodman spent three weeks in a New Jersey-based facility after he returned from North Korea with an organized group of retired NBA players that had traveled there for the exhibition game.
While there, he suffered an angry lapse during which he openly bickered with reporters and sang "Happy Birthday" to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the start of the friendly game.
Rodman said he will return to the rehab center every six months "to see where I'm at. I don't need to drink," he added. "I don't need to do anything."
The 52-year-old Rodman won five championships with the Detroit Pistons and Chicago Bulls and was one of the NBA's fiercest rebounders and most colorful personalities.
Rodman also told ESPN he plans to return to North Korea and defended his friendship with Kim Jong Un. "The people over there are not bad people," he said.
Rodman and Kim struck up a friendship when the basketball player-turned-celebrity first traveled to the secretive state last year.
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