Denise Rutkowski

[alison brundage]

I prefer to remain hopeful.  Many of us have done some stupid things in life....geez I roll my eyes at my own list of extremely stupid life decisions and mistakes...wrong turns.   Anyway, there's always hope for a 180 turn around.   Something about hitting bottom.....very humbling.   Once a person realizes how very vulnerable they are there's a ray of hope they might reach out to a helping hand and grab on.   I do pray exactly that for this woman.
I'd be the first person to do the grabbing on should she ever have opportunity to read this thread.....and ask.   I'd want her to know that. I've had a few "been there ...done that" moments in my life...and  her life is not over yet. 
ALISON

[zig563]

Good thoughts Alison. She needs to be reached by someone soon based on that picture. This has to be a rock bottom b/c just looking....she needs help now..I've seen addicts a little and when they start to look really bad is often right before you year the worst on them. I hope she has some support system in place or someone that will help her before it becomes too late. Some people just give up...I hate that. Lets hope someone can save her. Does not seem to be a good system in place for her there in Texas. She needs a rehab center....or needed one when that mug shot is from.Maybe she found one. Texas is one of those states with overcrowded prisons that does not bother with rehab as much as some other states. No insurance would really block her. Those places want people with insurance. Sad, but I hear that over and over from the people at the drug rehab places here. My mom's friend worked in that place and so does another guy I know. Real good place, but you need someone to pay for it.

[Niculescu]

She desperately needs help. That mugshot is nearly a year old so I hope she is still with us and doing better. I'm simply dumbfounded how the bottom fell out with her. Perhaps there are issues we can only speculate concerning her childhood, self esteem, depression etc. Then as you have said there's the damage done by drugs and alcohol.
I'm very curious as to what happened right after coming in second place at Ms. Olympia in 1994? Not getting 1st place was obviously a huge let down for her. From there she quickly dropped off the radar. With her disappointment and self esteem hit the last thing she needed was to be approached by a cult or group of fundamentalists. But then again she may have come from a strict religious upbringing and it wasn't that big of a deal until it was too late.
She's of Polish ancestry so I assume she had a Catholic upbringing and not a Texas Baptist one, or then again perhaps not.

[zig563]

Don't know those answers, but she was close enough to fight back and she did get 20 grand. Beats contests now. There was no reason to be deeply depressed ny 2nd place. I think she became a drug addict with both roids and more. Look at how she looked....almost a man....I would say a man if I was guessing...a real wimpy one. She is a testament to how fast drugs like roids and crack can take you down. That was 18 years and looks like 60 years of aging. You can only hope she's improved since then b/c when you look like that at 49....any more drug use usually means a funeral is next. Maybe a miracle could occur as Alison said and it would be that at this point. Her spirit is broken and to gain it back she must stop using. Can anyone help her?No idea. It sure does not look like she has any support system in her home area.

[alison brundage]

Zig......lets hope she does find help somewhere.   I doubt there is any one single reason you could pin this collapse of a person to....although I strongly suspect some strong addictive drug like crack or ice...dunno.  She apparetly is well thought of in the BB communitry and if you look on-line there is very little bad rap going on.  Her old pictures tell us she was one of the finest female bodybuilders of all time.  I should hope she would be able to see the positives in both of those things...do a turn around, remove from whatever is the negative influences are and stick with true winners in life....kind people with character.  Possibly that was why she hooked with the religious group...dunno.  Wherever safety is, she needs to cling hard to it and fight ...fight as hard as she did when she was that world class female bodybuilder we see in these old pictures.   I'm praying for her to come out of this with some inspiration for others who may have had similar experiences.   That alone is worth a lifetime of Ms O wins !!!
ALISON

[zig563]

Prayers are needed if she's looking as bad as that mug shot Alison. That is tragic. Forget the hormonal aspect....just look at the skin and face. She looks so weathered. Why? Of course, we have no idea...only she does and even she may not know exactly. It obviously had something to do with addiction and that would be the first step in getting her back on track. Lets hope someone down there stepped up and she listened. I've known a few addicts and they usually don't make it out of their 50's when they look like that. The ones I know did not even look near that bad and still died in their 40-50 age range. Lets hope and pray. It would be nice if one of the bodybuilding friends she had reached out to her in her time of need, but sometimes addicts isoltate themselves and there is not much you can do to find them. I only have known a few and read up on some. You just kind of get in your own little world I guess and don't want anyone else in. We'll hope for a miracle.

[alison brundage]

Well lets hope she peeks in here.  I'm open to help her.....all she has to do is say the word. 

[UK_Fan]

What a sad story and it should be a testament to younger females about what roids can do to you when overdone. That looks like a man and a very old man at that. A shame what drugs like roids and crack can do. Even if she was to fully recover...the damage is done and it would be a miracle if she sees 60. She looks like the next shot will be the obituary. How sad. I've never seen skin like that on someone 49 unless they had substance abuse issues and for a long time. I know people 85 who look better. Very sad, but I think we all knew it was her. That is where she grew up. If you watch her Bill Wick videos in Cali when she first decided Venice Beach and fbbing were for her she had a nice Texas southern girly accent and was clearly uncomfortable wrestling, but only early 20's.

Indeed. She's definitely had some recent or relatively recent drug/alcohol use from the looks of her. There's also some suspicious hair along the chin......roids I guess. I'm sure she was uncomfortable with the "adult" side to BB; wrestling and being photographed wearing silly non workout clothes like lingerie etc. You're right that she will most likely not see 60. Very sad and tragic. She was a powerhouse, top of her game.

I doubt if Denise had any problems about the posing or the more "adult" or wrestling "skits" a-la Bill Wick, Mass Muscle & Co - although she (for a time at least) found God (probably why she was looking after all those local kids in L.A. for a time before the "downfall"), she was a well know party animal and before getting into bodybuilding was a stripper (which I only found out quite recently) - I should've guessed given how great a poser she was and how erotic/sexy her posing was generally (even in the normally more low key WPW videos).  I suspect, as others have, that it was the partying and the really hard drugs that ruined her - we'll never know what would've become of her if she'd stayed away from them and the partying scene.  Sadly this sport is littered with similar cases of athletes who went from the top of the sport to the bottom of society on a "busted" webpage.  I suppose given the nature of the sport and the type of person it often attracts to it, then its no surprise that these things happen.

[alison brundage]

UK Fan
First let me say I appreciate your posts elsewhere here on saradas.  You seem to have a voice of reason and a level head.  Your comment "given the nature of the sport".....well I suppose.   Here you have women greased up and scantily clad showing themselves to their greatest advantage so as to demonstrate their prowess after having spent hard hours lifting iron and dieting.  Unfortunately from the audience's perspective there is considerable perving, lusting,along with the honest appreciation of what is certainly a sport and art. With the advent of mass media comes the glorification of perversion and making money because of it.  Frankly I'm not wild about the idea of sessions as it brings down what I thought was once a sport. I hung my hat and walked away from competition and all this happened when I had  my back turned....steroids bloomed, internet came into popularity, sessions, private sites and DVDs of all sordid sorts flooded the market.  Quite frankly I was fairly shocked when I came in here and really digested what had happened to what I remembered as a real sport and a personal joy to me...( I'm thinking here about how excited I was to pour through each new IronMan mag and learn something new) So YES...the "nature of the sport".....there's been a corruption of what was once a sport that is taken for granted, accepted and lusted after.  Soooooo it's a place now that if you are so inclined you can rapidly go from stardom right into the gaping maw of hell and ya know?....few will give a hoot...they'll just wonder where the body they lusted after went to.   Somehow the humanity got drained right out of what could have been a healthy sport. Human nature?, sign of the times?  .....was this destiny?   Do we see in the face of Denise in that mug shot what has now come to Female Bodybuilding?  ...a sad disgusting joke...a nightmare?   Just thinking outloud here.   I don't know...maybe it was a kind move to eliminate female bodybuilding from the Arnold's classsic to stem the collateral damage from ...."the nature of the sport".
ALISON

[Old Surehand]

Zig......lets hope she does find help somewhere.   I doubt there is any one single reason you could pin this collapse of a person to....although I strongly suspect some strong addictive drug like crack or ice...dunno.  She apparetly is well thought of in the BB communitry and if you look on-line there is very little bad rap going on.  Her old pictures tell us she was one of the finest female bodybuilders of all time.  I should hope she would be able to see the positives in both of those things...do a turn around, remove from whatever is the negative influences are and stick with true winners in life....kind people with character.  Possibly that was why she hooked with the religious group...dunno.  Wherever safety is, she needs to cling hard to it and fight ...fight as hard as she did when she was that world class female bodybuilder we see in these old pictures.   I'm praying for her to come out of this with some inspiration for others who may have had similar experiences.   That alone is worth a lifetime of Ms O wins !!!
ALISON

funny how i suggested we all pray and reach out to her a few posts/weeks back...& you and no one else responded...now the fakery kicks in and you and everyone else is on the band wagon

How are they going to respond to a prayer request on a forum? Prayer is something done in private for the benefit of who the prayer is for and not to prove anything to you. You don't know if any members prayed for this woman or not. Either way, it's none of your business.

[UK_Fan]

Zig......lets hope she does find help somewhere.   I doubt there is any one single reason you could pin this collapse of a person to....although I strongly suspect some strong addictive drug like crack or ice...dunno.  She apparetly is well thought of in the BB communitry and if you look on-line there is very little bad rap going on.  Her old pictures tell us she was one of the finest female bodybuilders of all time.  I should hope she would be able to see the positives in both of those things...do a turn around, remove from whatever is the negative influences are and stick with true winners in life....kind people with character.  Possibly that was why she hooked with the religious group...dunno.  Wherever safety is, she needs to cling hard to it and fight ...fight as hard as she did when she was that world class female bodybuilder we see in these old pictures.   I'm praying for her to come out of this with some inspiration for others who may have had similar experiences.   That alone is worth a lifetime of Ms O wins !!!
ALISON

funny how i suggested we all pray and reach out to her a few posts/weeks back...& you and no one else responded...now the fakery kicks in and you and everyone else is on the band wagon

I would agree with OS, but would also add that a) not everyone reads all posts/threads and replies every day, and b) for many ex-competitors, its very difficult for the rest of us to "find" them (they often completely "drop off the map" as it were) - I think Alison was extending a helping hand in case Denise asked via this forum, which is more than most people here have done (I realise most of us, including myself, aren't always in a position [or location] to be able to offer such assistance), and therefore should be applauded.

[Old Surehand]

Zig......lets hope she does find help somewhere.   I doubt there is any one single reason you could pin this collapse of a person to....although I strongly suspect some strong addictive drug like crack or ice...dunno.  She apparetly is well thought of in the BB communitry and if you look on-line there is very little bad rap going on.  Her old pictures tell us she was one of the finest female bodybuilders of all time.  I should hope she would be able to see the positives in both of those things...do a turn around, remove from whatever is the negative influences are and stick with true winners in life....kind people with character.  Possibly that was why she hooked with the religious group...dunno.  Wherever safety is, she needs to cling hard to it and fight ...fight as hard as she did when she was that world class female bodybuilder we see in these old pictures.   I'm praying for her to come out of this with some inspiration for others who may have had similar experiences.   That alone is worth a lifetime of Ms O wins !!!
ALISON

funny how i suggested we all pray and reach out to her a few posts/weeks back...& you and no one else responded...now the fakery kicks in and you and everyone else is on the band wagon

I would agree with OS, but would also add that a) not everyone reads all posts/threads and replies every day, and b) for many ex-competitors, its very difficult for the rest of us to "find" them (they often completely "drop off the map" as it were) - I think Alison was extending a helping hand in case Denise asked via this forum, which is more than most people here have done (I realise most of us, including myself, aren't always in a position [or location] to be able to offer such assistance), and therefore should be applauded.

Thanks for adding to my point. Very good analogy. The biggest surprise is that lolu's comments about a female bodybuilder are usually sexual.

[Niculescu]

Anyone familiar with that particular Ms. O event where Denise came in 2nd? Was there any "politics" involved in the judges decision?

[UK_Fan]

Anyone familiar with that particular Ms. O event where Denise came in 2nd? Was there any "politics" involved in the judges decision?

It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.  Woe betide any competitor for (whatever reason) getting on the wrong side of the judges (even through no fault/act of their own).  Particularly Lenda and Cory had their fair share of "very controversial" Ms. O wins, and politics has always played a major part in the sport.  The problem with bodybuilding is that its all about someone's opinion, even with judging criteria, hence why some make up their mind about who is "best" in their eyes often before the competition begins.  I wonder if this particular result (it doesn't stand out in my memory as much as some of the others) contributed towards Denise prematurely retiring?

[4gungadin]

So, have we been taken for a ride?  The pic on facebook looks . . . sexy?  No beard.  No drugs.  Just like I saw her years ago before she got on the juice.  Total babe.  Now, I had heard recently, from what I thought was a reliable source, that she had committed suicide, and, that when she was on the juice her boyfriend was having her sleep with other guys.  Was it true?  The suicide?  The sleeping around for your boyfriend?  If the sleeping with other guys was true then why?  For schmoes maybe, maybe for the extra dough, or to set up some guy for some mobster, or to please his benefactor whom he poses for every month for the 5 grand a month he was living on.

Or, was the woman who told me this mistaken, or worse, lying?  The rumor about Denise years ago was that she testified against some mobster and had fled, going from town to town with her dog as an itinerant pastor, passing the hat for her money. So, anything is possible.  If my source was lying, then why the lie? 

Not sure what to think.  It sounds like all of us have been taken for a ride.  Those arrest webs could be fake.