Ray Rice’s wife Janay reveals she still hasn’t seen video of him knocking her out in elevator
Ray Rice’s wife Janay reveals she still hasn’t seen video of him knocking her out in elevator
Janay Rice has still not seen the surveillance footage showing her former NFL star husband knocking her out in an Atlantic City elevator, she revealed today.
In an interview that aired on the Today show on Monday, Ray Rice’s wife described how painful it was for her life to be scrutinized after her husband made a ‘mistake’ in February.
She also slammed the Ravens for failing to support her family in the aftermath and revealed that she only issued a public apology for her part in the incident after the team suggested it.
Ray Rice, a running back, was suspended from the team after footage emerged in September showing him punching his then-girlfriend in an elevator after a night of drinking. On Saturday, he was reinstated to the league after winning an appeal and is now eligible to sign for any team.
Janay told Today that she has only seen the first video of the incident, which was taken outside the elevator and showed him dragging out her lifeless body and then walking away.
‘There was no preparing us for that at all,’ she said. ‘When I saw that, it was horrible.’
After she saw it, she asked him why he had left her on the floor, rather than comfort her.
‘He said he was terrified,’ she said. ‘He was in such shock that this had just happened. He didn’t know how to function at that point.’
But she has not seen the second video, which was taken inside the elevator.
‘I refuse,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to let the public bring me back there.’
Her mother Candy Palmer, who joined her for the interview, said that she had watched the video because she needed to know what happened to her daughter.
‘I was kind of sick,’ she said.
After the incident, she initially thought she was ‘done’ with the running back – but her ‘heart’ told her to stay with him because it was not like him.
On the night of the attack, Janay said she was annoyed with her husband because it was Valentine’s Day, and she wanted to go out as a couple – but they ended up being with friends.
She also said that she was drunk when Rice ‘slapped’ her in the elevator and her memory of the events is foggy.
‘I was furious’ afterwards, Janay told Lauer. ‘We came home and we didn’t talk the entire ride. I just knew he hit me, and I was done. I just didn’t even want to entertain it. Any explanation.’
But she added: ‘Of course in the back of my mind and in my heart I knew that our relationship wouldn’t be over because I know that this isn’t us and it’s not him.’
Since then the pair have reconciled. They married a month after his arrest for aggravated assault.
Janay insisted that Rice had never been violent with her before and has not been violent with her since.
‘He knows what he would have to deal with,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to sit there in silence and let something happen to me and – God forbid – in front of my child. No way.’
Janay also became emotional about the aftermath of the videos. She slammed the media for their reports and the Ravens for failing to support her family.
‘It brings back anger,’ she said. ‘I was so angry. I was hurt. Seeing that the man that I love – everything ripped up from under [us]. The support system that I thought we had in the Ravens – that made me angry. We have to pick up and move our child from where she’s used to… it hurt.’
She also revealed that she appeared at a press conference beside Rice in May after the Ravens suggested it. In front of the media, she apologized for her ‘role that night’.
She told the Today show that she apologized on the Ravens’ suggestion and that the team gave the couple a loose script to base their comments on.
‘I was ready to do anything that was going to help the situation,’ she said. ‘Help the way we looked in the media, help his image – I was fine with it.’
But she also accused NFL commissioner Roger Goodell of lying about seeing a second video of the domestic video incident in order to save himself.
‘I can’t say he’s telling the truth,’ she said. ‘I know for a fact that… Ray told the honest truth.’
Initially, Rice was suspended by Goodell for only two games following the one-punch knockout of his then-fiancée in an elevator at the New Jersey-based casino in February.
However, after security video of the altercation surfaced on TMZ in September, the Ravens released the three-time Pro Bowler, and his $35 million contract, and the NFL suspended him indefinitely.
The day after Rice was released from his contract, Janay took to her Instagram to describe the ‘horrible nightmare’ she found herself in.
Criticism over the two-day action led the NFL to toughen its penalties on domestic violence, with Mr Goodell admitting in a letter to team owners that he ‘didn’t get it right’.
Rice is now eligible to sign with any NFL team after his indefinite suspension from the NFL was dropped on appeal by a U.S. District Judge.
Janay also said that she’s confident that her husband – a three-time Pro Bowler and Super Bowl champ – will once again wear an NFL uniform.
‘He’s proven himself as a football player for seven years,’ she said. ‘There’s never been a question on what he can do on the field.’
