 In January 2018, Harding's childhood friend and filmmaker, Sandra Luckow, spoke in defence of Harding's mother because she felt that the 2017 film "I, Tonya" stretched some truths about LaVona's character.Luckow said that although Harding's mother could be "egregious" towards her daughter, LaVona funded and appreciated Harding's skating lessons, and had "a huge amount of humanity.