Eleven years after releasing a conspiracy video about the Sandy Hook school massacre in 2012, Ronda Rousey has publicly apologized.
Rousey was scheduled to participate in an “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit’s Squared Circle community this week, but it never happened after the Q&A session was flooded with questions about whether Rousey still believed the mass shooting was staged. Rousey shared the conspiracy video on Twitter in 2013, calling it “interesting” and a must-see.
In an apology late Thursday night, Rousey said reposting the video was the “most regrettable decision” of her life. She wanted to apologize, but – until now – she was always convinced it was not the right time.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve re-worded that apology over the past 11 years. How many times I’ve convinced myself it wasn’t the right time, or that I’d cause more harm. But 11 years ago, I made the most regrettable decision of my life,” she wrote. “I watched a Sandy Hook conspiracy video and posted it on Twitter. I didn’t even believe it, but was so horrified by the truth that I looked for an alternative fiction to latch onto instead. I quickly realized my mistake and took it down, but the damage was done. Miraculously, it seemed to slip under the media radar, I was never asked about it, so I never spoke about it again, fearful that drawing attention to it would have the opposite of the intended effect – it might increase the views of those conspiracy videos and, selfishly, show even more people that I was ignorant, self-centered, and insensitive enough to share one in the first place.”
Rousey said she wanted to include an apology in her memoir, “Our Fight,” which was released earlier this year, but her publisher asked her to take it out because they thought it would do more harm than good. Rousey believes she deserves every hate thrown her way and deserves to miss every opportunity in her career.
“But frankly, I deserve to be hated, labeled, loathed, despised and worse. I deserve to miss every opportunity, I should have been cancelled, I deserved it. I still do. I apologize for this coming 11 years too late, but to everyone affected by the Sandy Hook massacre: From the bottom of my heart and soul, I am so sorry for the pain I caused. I cannot even begin to imagine the pain you endured and words cannot describe how much I regret and am ashamed that I contributed to it. I have regretted it every day of my life since then and will until the day I die,” Rousey wrote.
“And to everyone else who has fallen into the black hole of bullshit. It’s not making you nervous or an independent thinker, you’re not doing your due diligence by digesting these conspiracies and considering every possibility. It’s only making you feel powerless, afraid, miserable and isolated. You’re doing nothing but harming others and yourself. Regardless of how many bridges you’ve burned because of it, stop digging yourself a deeper hole, don’t get caught up in the sunk cost fallacy, no matter how long you’ve been down the wrong path, you should still turn back.”
The mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2012 left 26 people dead, including 20 children.
When she shared the video, Rousey was in the midst of her UFC career. She went on to become a star in the WWE and is now focusing on writing projects, including writing her first graphic novel and penning the screenplay for an upcoming Netflix film about her life. Rousey announced last month that she and husband Travis Browne are expecting their second child together.
