Sacked NFL player Ray Rice’s wife Janay in bizarre Instagram statement
JUST days after video emerged of NFL star Ray Rice knocking his wife Janay unconscious with a punch, she made this extraordinary statement.
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THE abused wife of sacked and suspended NFL star Ray Rice has broken her silence after video emerged of him knocking her unconscious with a punch in a lift.
In an extraordinary statement, Janay Rice nee Palmer briefly mentioned the fact her husband, the former Baltimore Ravens running back, knocked her out cold before launching his defence.
“What don’t you all get,” Janay Rice wrote in a message posted on her Instagram site.
“If your intentions were to hurt us, embarrass us, make us feel alone, take all happiness away, you’ve succeeded on so many levels. Just know we will continue to grow and show the world what real love is! Ravensnation we love you!”
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TMZ published the shocking video of Rice punching his fiancee and knocking her unconscious in a lift at Atlantic City. He was subsequently fired by the Ravens and suspended indefinitely by the NFL.
“To take something away from the man I love that he has worked his ass off for all his life just to gain ratings is horrific,” Janay Rice wrote. “THIS IS OUR LIFE!”
There was no mention of the domestic violence she suffered or the fact that 22.1 per cent of women in the US have been physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, partner, boyfriend or date in their lifetime.
Janay Rice married her husband the month after he knocked her unconscious with a left hook.
“I woke up this morning feeling like I had a horrible nightmare, feeling like I’m mourning the death of my closest friend,” Janay Rice wrote in her post. “But to have to accept the fact that it’s reality is a nightmare in itself. No one knows the pain that the media and unwanted options (sic) from the public has caused my family. To make us relive a moment in our lives that we regret every day is a horrible thing.”
Janay Rice’s decision to stand by her husband despite the beating he dealt her appears to have ensured that the disciplinary repercussions for the star running back are kept to a minimum. The NFL initially banned him for only two games, while Atlantic County prosecutors declined to press charges, instead sending Rice into a diversionary program.
Domestic violence experts said the public often doesn’t realise how difficult it can be for victims of domestic violence and abuse to press charges.
Perpetrators will threaten their victims, says Katie Ray-Jones, CEO of the National Domestic Violence Hotline, and organisation that has provided services and support to domestic violence victims since 1996.
“Our job as victim advocates is to explain that there are options, and victims don’t have to live with abuse,” Ray-Jones wrote in an article in the New York Daily News.
“You can’t take a cookie-cutter approach to leaving a relationship. Every situation is unique.”
Originally published as Sacked NFL player Ray Rice’s wife Janay in bizarre Instagram statement
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