Ravens RB Ray Rice apologizes for 'inexcusable' actions against wife
Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice publicly apologized to his wife Thursday at a press conference in Owings Mills, Maryland, after the NFL suspended him two games and fined him for violating the league's personal conduct policy.
'My actions were inexcusable. That's something I have to live with the rest of my life,' said Rice, referring to a February incident that was caught on video that shows Rice dragging his then unconscious fiance (and now wife), Janay Palmer, out of an Atlantic City elevator after allegedly punching her.
'The pain that I'm talking about living with is that, is waking up every day, and my daughter's 2-years-old now. 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,' added Rice.
Rice and Palmer have since married and appeared together during a May press conference where she apologized to Rice, but he did not reciprocate. Thursday, Rice made his first comments since NFL commissioner Roger Goodell suspended him last week, and the 27-year-old Ravens player finally admitted to a full mea culpa during his remarks at the team's training camp site. His wife was in attendance Thursday, watching her husband's speech from a balcony.
'I didn't publicly apologize to my wife. I realize that hit home with a lot of people,' said Rice. 'I've made the biggest mistake of my life. Me. She can do no wrong. She's an angel.'
Rice admitted that he and his wife are seeking counseling, and that at an appropriate time in the future, the couple would be advocates for speaking out against domestic violence and violence against women.
'I know that's not who I am as a man. That's not who my mom raised me to be. If anybody knows me, they know I was raised by a single parent, and that was my mother,' said Rice. 'I let her down, I let my wife down, I let my daughter down. I let my wife's parents down. I let the whole Baltimore community down. I let my teammates down. I let so many people down because of 30 seconds of my life that I know I can't take back.'
Rice pleaded not guilty to third-degree aggravated assault, but he avoided a trial after he was accepted into a pre-trial intervention program. He served no jail time and will not be prosecuted. After a year, his record will be cleared of the assault charges.
'I'll be honest, like I said, I own my actions. I just don't want to keep reliving the incident because the incident itself. ... I'm trying to move on. Every time I have to keep reliving it, it doesn't bring any good to me,' said Rice. 'What happened that night was a huge mistake on my part, and that's why I'll keep it at.'
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