Former MMA fighter and professional wrestler Ronda Rousey has issued an online apology, which she admits is “11 years too late,” for reposting a conspiracy video about the deadly 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting on social media.
Rousey, an Olympic bronze medalist in judo, said reposting the video was “the single most regrettable decision of my life" and that she didn't even believe the video but “was so horrified at the truth that I was grasping for an alternative fiction to cling to instead.”
Rousey said she realized her mistake and quickly took down the post, but “the damage was done.” She said she was never asked about the post by the media, and she was afraid to draw attention to the video over the years. Rousey said she drafted “a thousandth apology” for her recent memoir, but a publisher urged her to take it out. She then convinced herself that apologizing would reopen an emotional wound in order to “shake the label of being a ‘Sandy Hook truther.’ "
“But honestly I deserve to be hated, labeled, detested and worse for it. I deserve to lose out on every opportunity, I should have been canceled, I would have deserved it. I still do,” Rousey wrote. “I apologize that this came 11 years too late, but to those affected by the Sandy Hook massacre, from the bottom of my heart and depth of my soul I am so sorry for the hurt I caused.”
The issue of Rousey’s posting of the video recently came up on the platform Reddit when she invited users to ask her questions about her recently launched fundraising campaign for her first graphic novel. Some asked why she didn’t issue a strong apology for amplifying the conspiracy theory about the shooting.
After the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, which left 20 first graders and six educators dead, falsehoods were pushed that the tragedy was a hoax. Victims' families, who were awarded $1.5 billion by a jury in 2022 for the role conspiracy theorist Alex Jones played, have said they have been subjected to years of torment, threats and abuse by people who believed such lies.
A spokesperson for the lawyer who represents the families declined to comment on Rousey's apology.
In her statement, Rousey said she was “remorseful and ashamed” for the pain she contributed to those affected by the massacre.
“I've regretted it every day of my life since and will continue to do so until the day I die,” she wrote.
Rousey warned others about falling down the “black hole” of conspiracy theories.
“It doesn't make you edgy or an independent thinker, you're not doing your due diligence entertaining every possibility by digesting these conspiracies. They will only make you feel powerless, afraid, miserable and isolated,” she wrote. “You're doing nothing but hurting others and yourself.”
FILE - Professional wrestler Ronda Rousey speaks at a press conference in East Rutherford, N.J., Friday, March 16, 2018.(Marko Georgiev/The Record via AP, File)
BOSTON (AP) — A study that explores the feasibility of using pigeons to guide missiles and one that looks at the swimming abilities of dead fish were among the winners Thursday of this year’s Ig Nobels, the prize for comical scientific achievement.
Held less than a month before the actual Nobel Prizes are announced, the 34th annual Ig Nobel prize ceremony at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was organized by the Annals of Improbable Research magazine’s website to make people laugh and think. Winners received a transparent box containing historic items related to Murphy’s Law — the theme of the night — and a nearly worthless Zimbabwean $10 trillion bill. Actual Nobel laureates handed the winners their prizes.
“While some politicians were trying to make sensible things sound crazy, scientists discovered some crazy-sounding things that make a lot of sense,” Marc Abrahams, master of ceremonies and editor of the magazine, said in an e-mail interview.
The ceremony started with Kees Moliker, winner of 2003 Ig Noble for biology, giving out safety instructions. His prize was for a study that documented the existence of homosexual necrophilia in mallard ducks.
“This is the duck,” he said, holding up a duck. “This is the dead one.”
After that, someone came on stage wearing a yellow target on their chest and a plastic face mask. Soon, they were inundated with people in the audience throwing paper airplanes at them.
Then, the awards began — several dry presentations which were interrupted by a girl coming on stage and repeatedly yelling “Please stop. I'm bored.” The awards ceremony was also was broken up by an international song competition inspired by Murphy's Law, including one about coleslaw and another about the legal system.
The winners were honored in 10 categories, including for peace and anatomy. Among them were scientists who showed a vine from Chile imitates the shapes of artificial plants nearby and another study that examined whether the hair on people's heads in the Northern Hemisphere swirled in the same direction as someone's hair in the Southern Hemisphere.
Other winners include a group of scientists who showed that fake medicine that causes side effects can be more effective than fake medicine that doesn't cause side effects and one showing that some mammals are cable of breathing through their anus — winners who came on stage wearing a fish-inspired hats.
Julie Skinner Vargas accepted the peace prize on behalf of her late father B.F. Skinner, who wrote the pigeon-missile study. Skinner Vargas is also the head of the B.F. Skinner Foundation.
“I want to thank you for finally acknowledging his most important contribution,” she said. “Thank you for putting the record straight.”
James Liao, a biology professor at the University of Florida, accepted the physics prize for his study demonstrating and explaining the swimming abilities of a dead trout.
“I discovered that a live fish moved more than a dead fish but not by much,” Liao said, holding up a fake fish. “A dead trout towed behind a stick also flaps its tail to the beat of the current like a live fish surfing on swirling eddies, recapturing the energy in its environment. A dead fish does live fish things.”
Professor James Liao displays a stuffed fish while accepting a prize for physics for demonstrating and explaining the swimming abilities of a dead trout during a performance at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
A team of researchers perform a demonstration during a performance showing that many mammals are capable of breathing through their anus while accepting the 2024 Ig Nobel prize in physiology at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Mass., Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
People in the audience throw paper airplanes toward the stage during a performance at the Ig Nobel Prize ceremony at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)
FILE - Students walk past the "Great Dome" atop Building 10 on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus in Cambridge, Mass, April 3, 2017. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)
