Floyd Mayweather looked to clear the air this week in an interview with Katie Couric for Yahoo! News. Couric sat down with Mayweather ahead of the May 2 fight, and asked him about his history of alleged domestic abuse against women. In 2010, Josie Harris, the mother of three of his children, accused Mayweather of beating her in front of their children. To avoid a felony trial, Mayweather plead guilty to a reduced domestic-violence charge and no contest to two harassment misdemeanor charges, and was sentenced to 90 days in jail.
He says that there was no beating, and that he was merely "restraining" Harris, who according to Mayweather, was "on drugs" at the time.
“Did I kick, stomp and beat someone? No, that didn’t happen,” said Mayweather. "I look in your face and say, ‘No, that didn’t happen.’ Did I restrain a woman that was on drugs? Yes, I did. So if they say that’s domestic violence, then, you know what? I’m guilty. I’m guilty of restraining someone.’ ”
Since 2002, when Mayweather was first accused of domestic violence by Melissa Brim, the mother of his daughter, he's been accused of eight assaults by six different women, but has only faced prosecution in Harris' case.
Mayweather was defiant in his assertion that optics and bad press are responsible for his image, not the facts of the incidents:
“I’m black. I’m rich. And I’m outspoken. Those are three strikes right there,” he said. “So, you know, when someone says, ‘I got pushed or hit,’ I’m a fighter, so I may not really hit a person. But guess what? I got to fight the case because I’m already guilty.. They don’t know if I really did it or not. But since I’m a fighter, they’re gonna say, ‘You know what? He did it.’"
He did do it, though. In America, being black, rich, and outspoken certainly can (and will) work against you, but being a convicted domestic abuser isn't a matter of social politics—it's public record. He plead guilty. That's that. Add up the accusations with the knowledge that domestic abuse isn't a one-time thing—it's a string of behavior—and you've got someone to call BS on. Mayweather's interpretation—a professional boxer's, that is—of "restraining" someone is likely different than a regular person's.
Check out more from the interview in the video below.
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[via Washington Post]
