Janay Rice Reveals Ravens Scripted Controversial Presser
The Baltimore Ravens must’ve thought they were safe when Ray Rice was reinstated on Black Friday. Sure, a former federal judge pretty much called bullshit on the commissioner’s claim Rice wasn’t truthful about what happened in that elevator, but the Ravens had released Rice and thought they’d washed their hands of the whole thing.
They weren’t figuring on Janay Rice.
Within the hour of Ray Rice’s reinstatement, ESPN released a first person interview his wife Janay had done with Jemele Hill on November 5th. In it, she disclosed some details about that May 23rd press conference, which was widely criticized for being ill-conceived and tone-deaf, especially in how it was covered by the Ravens and their Twitter account. Rice revealed that the “Ravens just said it was something that they felt we should do.” She agreed to it, hoping that seeing Ray accept responsibility and the two of them talking about it would help humanize both of them in the wake of media scrutiny. Then, when clarifying her controversial apology, she dropped another bombshell:
“When it was my turn to speak, I said I regretted my role in the incident. I know some people disagreed with me publicly apologizing. I’m not saying that what Ray did wasn’t wrong. He and I both know it was wrong. It’s been made clear to him that it was wrong. But at the same time, who am I to put my hands on somebody? I had already apologized to Ray, and I felt that I should take responsibility for what I did. Even though this followed the Ravens’ suggested script, I owned my words.”
Even though Janay Rice agreed to the press conference and meant everything she said, her claim that the Ravens even attempted to script it drags the team right back into the firestorm. It might also explain why their Twitter account was so ready with quotes, including the most-controversial “Janay Rice says she deeply regrets the role that she played the night of the incident”, which was only deleted after the TMZ video release during Week 1. Whether she’s telling the truth or not, life at M&T Bank Stadium won’t be any easier for a while.
Read Janay Rice’s interview at ESPN.com.
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