ray Rice and his wife, Janay. (Getty)
In an exclusive, tell-all interview with the Baltimore Sun, Ray Rice admits that he still absolutely loves the city of Baltimore and remains regretful of the incident that occurred with his wife Janay in an Atlantic City casino that forever changed the course of his life.
The most revealing aspect of the interview was when Rice said: “I understand why people commit suicide.” Not to be taken out of context, Rice’s career spiked out of control as he was extradited, first by the NFL and then by the public once the footage of the video was released — Rice personally feels as though he’ll never gain the public’s trust again, which is what allowed him to think like this.
In an excerpt from the interview, Rice said:
The big picture of it all, being the person that I am, I really felt horrible. You almost want to punish yourself. I know I’m never going to win the battle of public opinion. Honestly, I almost felt like at one point that it wasn’t worth living. I see why people commit suicide.
It hurt that bad. I was low, real low. It hurt that bad because you worked your whole life to do all the right things and then you’re the world’s most hated person. It was really tough. My daughter, oh Lord, I grew up without a father, there’s no way I could check out on my own family.
Rice goes on:
It’s tough, I realize that’s a battle I’m going to have to face for the rest of my life,” Rice said. “Time does heal everything, but I don’t think people are going to forget this. I want people to not forget about the incident, but I want people to see there’s a human being on the other side. This is not a monster, a guy who’s a repeat offender. I’m not the guy they stereotype me to be. I’m not excusing what I did.
Over the course of the last year, Rice was able to evade jail time by accepting an agreement to go into pretrial intervention for one full year.
Rice will have to attend the program for the minimum of one year. If he successfully completes it, the third-degree charge of aggravated assault stemming from the incident on Feb. 15 involving Janay Palmer, who is now his wife, will be dismissed. The arrest would stay on his record but without the conviction.
He and his wife have also made several media appearances in the course of the last year, explaining how they continue to work on their marriage and how incident has changed their lives and the public perception of Rice.
In November 2014, Rice won his suspension appeal against the NFL, which reinstated him, but, at this point, it is uncertain if an NFL team will take a chance on Rice and sign him because of the PR that would follow from it.
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Ray Rice to Baltimore Sun: ‘I Understand Why People Commit Suicide’