Retired five-time NBA champion Dennis Rodman has confirmed that he will be in Singapore for the Trump-Kim summit on June 12.

He will arrive one day before the summit. Sources said he could even play some sort of role in the negotiations.

In case you have forgotten, Rodman is the basketballer who has made multiple visits to North Korea since 2013 and considers Kim Jong-un his "friend for life".

He is now cast as an ambassador of goodwill between the two nations that were once butting heads not too long ago.

Rodman taking credit for Trump-Kim get together

Rodman is taking some of the credit for getting the two leaders together.

In an April interview with TMZ, Rodman said that Kim didn’t understand the US president until he gave the North Korean strongman a copy of Trump’s ghost-written book, The Art of the Deal, for his birthday in 2017.

“I think [Kim] didn’t realise who Donald Trump was at that time, I guess, until he started to read the book and started to get to understand him. Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un are pretty much the same,” Rodman told the website.

“I don’t want to take all the credit. I don’t want to sit there and say, ‘I did this, I did that.’ That’s not my intention.”

“My intention was to go over and be a sports ambassador to North Korea so people understand how the people are in North Korea. I think that has resonated to this whole point now.”

Notable visits

Rodman first visited North Korea in March 2013, with the Harlem Globetrotters, where they played against the North Koreans and ended the match with 110-all and a presentation of a Globetrotters jersey to Kim.

He would visit the country again two more times in the same year.

The second time in September 2013, Rodman said he was there to "see my friend" and "talk about basketball".

This visit has also been suggested as the main factor behind the release of Kenneth Bae, a South-Korean born US citizen who works as a missionary and was originally sentenced to 15 years of hard labour in North Korea after getting arrested there.

On the third time in December 2013, Rodman held trials for a basketball exhibition game that was due to be played for Kim's birthday -- a birthday that he personally attended the following month to sing for Kim:

Last year, Rodman returned again to North Korea in June, giving Kim a copy of Trump's The Art of the Deal as a gift.

Rodman defended Kim

Rodman has also sought to debunk some of the crazier reports swirling around Kim.

When Rodman went on the Stephen Colbert show last December to speak about his friendship with Kim, he insisted that Kim's uncle Jang Song-Thaek was still alive in response to Colbert mentioning reports that Kim had "murdered his uncle and fed him to the dogs".

This is a stand that Rodman has consistently maintained since 2014, even though the execution has also been reported by North Korea media.

Talk about being a dedicated friend indeed.

In a continuing sign of his affection, Rodman put up the following post on Facebook when the summit was originally slated for April:

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It should be noted that at this point, Rodman is the only other person apart from Moon Jae-in to have met both Trump and Kim.

Now that Rodman is coming to Singapore to show his support for the summit, he has definitely come a long way since 2014, when Trump slammed Rodman for his attempts to involve him in his "basketball diplomacy" with North Korea.

Crazy Dennis Rodman is saying I wanted to go to North Korea with him. Never discussed, no interest, last place on Earth I want to go to.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8, 2014

Top photo by Rodong Sinmun/ Korea News Service via AP