Chamique Holdsclaw is an Olympic gold medalist and one of the biggest stars in WNBA history. But her reputation has been marred by a headline-making incident in 2012: Holdsclaw's violent confrontation with an ex-girlfriend in which the star athlete fired a gun into her ex's car and smashed the windows with a baseball bat -- all while the woman was sitting in the front seat.
According to relationship expert Iyanla Vanzant, this violent outburst is a symptom of a larger issue and one that she helps Holdsclaw identify on a new episode of "Iyanla: Fix My Life." Iyanla believes that beneath the surface of this woman struggling with her anger and self-control is a young girl who resents the absent mother she says was an alcoholic.
When Iyanla gets Holdsclaw and her mother in the same room, she encourages Holdsclaw to speak from her heart, directly to her mother, about her childhood resentment. "Why don't you tell her what it was like for you, so she really understands?" Iyanla suggests.
"It's embarrassing when kids make fun of you because your mom is found outside, on a bench, drunk. Passed out," Holdsclaw says to her mother, shakily. "I'm hitting the basketball court because it's fun and everybody's making fun of me. I just wanted to detach. I didn't want anything associated with you. It was embarrassing."
"If you were to close your eyes right now, what does that little girl want her [mother] to know?" Iyanla asks Holdsclaw.
"'I hate you,'" Holdsclaw says, with her eyes shut. "'I hate you.'"
Mother and daughter work with Iyanla to repair their damaged relationship on "Iyanla: Fix My Life," airing Saturday, August 17, at 9 p.m. ET on OWN.
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