"America, they want someone to love," the Australian star narrates in an impressive Oregon accent. "But they want someone to hate."
Interspersed is footage of the actress skating in front of baying crowds and forcing her way through media scrums.
Alison Janney, sporting accurately awful wig, also makes her first appearance as Harding's mother LaVona Golden, chugging a drink at a bar and not looking too impressed.
Avengers star Sebastian Stan also makes a mustachioed ex-husband Jeff Gillooly.
"And the haters always say, 'Tonya, tell the truth!' she concludes. "There's no such thing as truth. I mean, it's bullsh*t."
Harding - now 46 - was infamously accused of ordering an attack on fellow skater and rival Nancy Kerrigan.
An Olympian then famed for her triple axel, she found herself slapped with a lifetime ban from the US Figure Skating Association in 1994.
Her bodyguard and her ex-husband had enlisted a thug to break Kerrigan's leg, and although he bungled the job, he still bruised Nancy severely enough to force her out of the US Figure Skating Championship.
The next month, both Harding and Kerrigan competed in the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer.
The former earned eighth place, the latter a silver medal.
The three men - as well as the getaway car driver - served time for their involvement in the attack.
Harding pleaded guilty to conspiracy to hinder their prosecution, thereby managing to keep herself out of prison.
The trailer shows a fleeting and disturbing - and probably imagined - moment when when one skater brutally beats another with a baseball bat.
I, Tonya hits theatres on February 15.
