On Monday, we heard from Janay Rice, about that February night in an Atlantic City elevator, when her then-fiancé Ray Rice knocked her unconscious in an assault that was caught on camera. In an interview that aired on TODAY Tuesday, Ray Rice spoke to Matt Lauer about the elevator incident, his future career and more, alongside Janay and her parents, Candy and Joe Palmer.
Ray Rice on what it would take for another NFL team to sign him
Matt Lauer: What do you think it would take for another owner and another group of fans to put the images of that video behind and say, ‘We’ll take a chance on Ray Rice?’
Ray Rice: They would have to be willing to, you know, look deeper into who I am and realize that me and my wife had one bad night, and I took full responsibility for it. And one thing about my punishment and everything going along with anything that happened is that I’ve accepted it. I went fully forward with it. I never complained, or I never did anything like that. I took full responsibility for everything that I did, and the only thing I can hope for and wish for is a second chance. via today.com
Rice on the press conference in the aftermath of the incident
Lauer: We didn’t see a ton of anger on Janay’s face. We also heard her apologize and at that press conference we didn’t hear you apologize to her. And that upset a lot of people. Do you understand that?
Rice: Yes, I definitely understand that. The reason why that press conference was the way it was, was because we were still under legal situations. So there wasn’t much that could be said, but I’ll be honest, we were nervous, I was nervous, and that was the first time we were available to speak. And I made a horrendous mistake not apologizing to my wife.
We were given what to speak about. It wasn’t truly coming from us, if you can understand, but I made that clear in my last time I was able to speak that my wife is an angel. She can do no wrong. I take full responsibility for my actions.
Rice on his wife apologizing at the press conference
Lauer: In hindsight did it bother you to hear her apologize?
Rice: In hindsight I think she was doing it because she knows what I do for a living. She understood my job and my profession. And I think it was her doing that, trying to take light off the situation, to…
Lauer: Protect you.
Rice: Yeah. And I appreciated it, but that’s not what the big deal is. The big deal is for me to always protect her, and that’s why I said I take full responsibility. She can do no wrong. This is something, you know, as a man you have to own and, we’re horribly sorry, and I’m horribly sorry for everything that I have to put my family through. I still got to live every day, go take my daughter to school. She’s going to grow up and the way the Internet works now she’s going to Google her father’s name and the first thing that’s going to come up is, you know what’s going to come up.
The reality of it and that’s what I’m more worried about fixing is that I want my wife, my daughter, my family – we all just want our lives back. I realize football was one thing, but now I realize that the amount of people we’ve affected, the amount of families we’ve affected, that, you know, domestic violence is a real issue in society. We could take our one bad night, it just happened to be on video, but we are truly sorry to the people that are really going through it. You know, it’s a real problem. And I know when the time is right, I know my wife wants to help, I know I want to help. Read More at today.com
Ray Rice seeks ‘second chance’ for NFL; admits mistake for not apologizing to Janay [VIDEO INTERVIEW] was originally published on wzakcleveland.com
