Janay Rice, Ray Rice’s Wife, Defends Husband On “Today”

Janay Rice, the battered wife of football star, Ray Rice spoke with Matt Lauer in a wide-ranging interview for the Today show, and confirmed what most of everybody already thought: the NFL did what they had to do to protect themselves. Earlier in May, when the elevator video detailing the beating Rice gave to his wife, the NFL altered their punishment of Rice — from a two game suspension to an indefinite suspension. They also gave the couple a script to go by for their press conference. At the suggestion of both NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and the Baltimore Ravens organization, Janay apologized for “her role” in the incident — an act many criticized.

Today ran multiple excerpts of its sit-down with Janay on early this morning, and brought up the apology she made. “I apologized because, for one, this press conference was something Ray and I put together. I was ready to do anything that was going to help the situation, both help the way we looked in the media, help his image, help obviously his career… they suggested it, yes. They basically gave us a general script.”

When reflecting on the apology she made on the press conference, Janay said, “I was basically not doing what I was told, but I didn’t think it was completely wrong for me to apologize because, at the end of the day, I got arrested, too. I did something wrong, too. Not taking any light off of what Ray did, because I agree with everybody else, it was wrong.”

One of the other controversial moments in the earlier press conference was Ray Rice’s lack of verbalized apology. He stumbled over notes he had on his cell phone, but never seemed to speak directly to the attack. It’s something that Janay Rice dismissed. “In our mind, it’s obvious that he apologized to me more than once, countless amount of times. I’m sitting there next to him. I wouldn’t be sitting there next to him if I wasn’t the first person that got an apology. There’s no way, but the whole thing was awkward. We were just doing what we had to do get it over and done with.”

It was announced that last week that Rice is again eligible to play in the NFL, and though the Baltimore Ravens have dropped him, he is hoping to get picked up by another team. While Janay’s interview had aired today, Ray’s one-on-one interview with Matt Lauer will be airing tomorrow morning on the Today show.