Ronda Rousey apologizes for sharing Sandy Hook conspiracy video

globalnews.ca:

Eleven years after she shared a video that touted conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, former UFC champion Ronda Rousey has issued an apology.

In a lengthy statement shared to X early Friday morning, Rousey said she’s regretted the post “every day of my life.”

In January 2013, about a month after a gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and killed 20 children and six staffers, Rousey shared a YouTube video to X (then Twitter) that cast doubt on the shooting. Rousey posted a link to the video and wrote, “Extremely interesting, and must-watch.”

“I didn’t even believe it, but was so horrified at the truth that I was grasping for an alternative fiction to cling to instead,” Rousey said in her apology. “I quickly realized my mistake and took it down, but the damage was done.”

The 37-year-old pro wrestler said she’s drafted the apology several times over the last decade, but has never had the courage to speak out until now. One such attempt to apologize was in her recent memoir, Our Fight, but Rousey said her publisher “begged” to remove it, “saying it would overshadow everything else and do more harm than good.”

pic.twitter.com/JpBZ0R0VKr

— Ronda Rousey (@RondaRousey) <a href=«https://twitter.com/RondaRousey/status/1826859290164166749?ref_src=» https:>August 23, 2024

Rousey’s hesitancy to apologize was also in part due to fear that calling attention to the video would increase the reach of the conspiracy theories, and would “selfishly, inform even more people I was ignorant, self absorbed and tone deaf enough to share one in the first place.”

“But honestly, I deserve to be hated, labeled, detested, resented and worse for it,” Rousey wrote. “I deserve to lose out on