Former MMA fighter and professional wrestler Ronda Rousey has apologized online for reposting a conspiracy video about the deadly mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 on social media. She admits that she is “11 years too late.”
Rousey, an Olympic bronze medalist in judo, said reposting the video was “by far the most regrettable decision of my life.” She said she didn’t even believe the video but was “so horrified by the truth that I looked for an alternative fiction to cling to instead.”
Rousey said she realized her mistake and quickly deleted the post, but “the damage was done.” She said she was never questioned by the media about the post and has been afraid to draw attention to the video over the years. Rousey said she wrote “a thousandth apology” for her recent memoir, but a publisher pressured her to retract it. She then convinced herself that an apology would reopen an emotional wound in order to “shake off the label of being a ‘Sandy Hook truther.'”
“But honestly, I deserve to be hated, labeled, loathed and worse. I deserve to miss every opportunity, I should have been canceled, I deserved it. I still do,” Rousey wrote. “I apologize for this coming 11 years too late, but to those affected by the Sandy Hook massacre: From the bottom of my heart and soul, I am so sorry for the pain I caused.”
The topic of Rousey’s release of the video recently came up on the platform Reddit, when she invited users to ask her questions about her recently launched fundraiser for her first graphic novel. Some asked why she did not issue a firm apology for amplifying the conspiracy theory about the shooting.
Following the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 20 first-graders and six teachers dead, falsehoods were spread that the tragedy was a hoax. The families of the victims, whom a jury awarded $1.5 billion in 2022 for the role of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, said they had been subjected to years of torment, threats and abuse by people who believed such lies.
A spokesman for the lawyer representing the families declined to comment on Rousey’s apology.
In her statement, Rousey said she was “remorseful and ashamed” of the suffering she had caused to the victims of the massacre.
“I have regretted it every day of my life since then and will do so until the day I die,” she wrote.
Rousey warned others not to fall into the “black hole” of conspiracy theories.
“It doesn’t make you nervous or an independent thinker, you are not doing your due diligence by considering these conspiracies. It will only make you feel powerless, afraid, miserable and isolated,” she wrote. “You are doing nothing but harming others and yourself.”
