BASKETBALL fanatic Kim Jong-un was desperate for icon Michael Jordan to visit nuclear rogue state North Korea, Dennis Rodman says.
Rodman and the ruthless dictator bonded over their love of the sport while the Chicago Bulls legend visited the secretive kingdom in 2013.
And the sportsman, now 59, told Mike Tyson on his Hotboxin podcast that Jordan was the leader’s first choice.
He said Kim told him: “We asked Michael Jordan to come but he wouldn’t come so we asked you.”
Kim Jong-un fell in love with basketball while at school in Switzerland and is known to be a die hard Bulls fan.
His father Kim Jong-ill also followed Jordan’s legendary team which won six NBA championships in the 1990s.
Former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson told ABC News that the late-North Korean leader requested the icon of American sport visit the communist state in 2000.
He said: “When I was there on my trips, the father [Kim Jong Il] through his foreign ministry people wanted me to extend an invitation to Michael Jordan.”
We asked Michael Jordan to come but he wouldn’t come so we asked you
Kim Jong-un to Dennis Rodman
And while Jordan declined the request, then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gifted the brutal regime with a basketball signed by the sportsman.
Two US officials told ABC News that Kim Jong-un requested the US send “famous basketball players” to help relations between the two nations at his summit with Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam in 2019.
However, Trump and Kim failed to agree terms at the meeting.
And according to the Washington Post, the President Barack Obama considered sending basketball players to North Korea in a bid to start diplomatic relations with the secretive country.
Kim Jong-un unlikely friendship with Rodman made headlines around the world.
The 6ft6in sportsman, known as his tattoos and piercings, spoke about his wild night of partying with the North Korean leader hours after the pair had first met.
Rodman said: “Next thing I know, we are having dinner and we are drunk as s***, he starts singing karaoke and I have no clue what the f*** he’s talking about.
PARTYING WITH KIM
“Everyone starts clapping and then he has this 18-piece girl band come out and these girls are hot but they just played one song.
“Just one f***ing song. It was the theme from Dallas.”
Rodman’s bonding session with Kim paved the way for several more visits to North Korea.
Last week Rodman gave his verdict after weeks of frenzied speculation on the dictator’s health after he vanished for 20 days only to reappear on May 1.
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Rodman said he does not believe reports his friend was incapacitated.
He told the New York Post: “It probably wasn’t much.
“I’ve been to dinner with dignitaries there that were reported to be dead here.
“I don’t believe North Korean news until I hear it from their side.
“I think the fact that they keep to themselves, in many ways, gives the media the ability to run with rumours at times.