Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice, once a good guy now labeled an abuser after striking his wife in an elevator in February, called that “the biggest mistake of my life” in his first back-and-forth interview Thursday with the media since the drama unfolded.
Rice, who has been suspended for two games by the NFL, apologized to his wife, Janay Palmer, who was his fiancee at the time of the incident — and all women affected by domestic violence.
“There are many nights that me and my wife sleep together and we still have to deal with this,” Rice said. “And her pain is my pain, my pain is her pain, the one thing I wanted to do today is, you know, apologize to my wife, who I’ve known since high school. I’ve known her since a kid. I met her in high school, and she’s the same girl now, great mother, and she’s a great wife, and she supports me throughout.”
While Rice declined two inquiries for specifics about what happened in the Atlantic City, New Jersey, elevator, he said it was a “one-time incident” and expressed his intentions to become an “ambassador” against domestic violence.
“I made the biggest mistake of my life,” Rice said.
“That night I replay over and over in my head. That’s not me. My actions were inexcusable. That’s something I have to live with the rest of my life. The pain I’m talking about living with is waking up every day, and my daughter is 2 years old now, and I have a little girl, who’s very smart, very intelligent, and one day she’s going to know the power of Google, and me having to explain that to her, what happened that night.”
“When the time is right, when the time is right,” Rice added, “and I say that because you have to fix yourself before you can go out and help others, and when the time is right, me and my wife want to go out there and help people, anybody, violence of any kind, especially man on woman, is just not right. It’s not right; it shouldn’t be tolerated. It’s not right for society, no matter what. That’s something I’ll stand by, and I have to pay for that.”
