Ronda Rousey Apologizes for Sharing Sandy Hook Shooting Conspiracy Video 11 Years Ago: ‘I Was Ignorant’ and ‘Deserve to Be Hated and Detested’

Former UFC fighter and actor Ronda Rousey issued an apology on social media for an incident that took place 11 years ago in which she shared a conspiracy theory video about the Sandy Hook shooting. While Rousey deleted the video post at the time and told her followers that “she never meant to insult or hurt anyone,” she now published a lengthy apology statement on social media in which she admitted that she deserved to be hated and “should’ve been canceled.”

“I can’t say how many times I’ve redrafted this apology over the last 11 years,” Rousey wrote. “How many times I’ve convinced myself it wasn’t the right time or that I’d be causing even more damage by giving it. But 11 years ago I made the single most regrettable decision of my life. I watched a Sandy Hook conspiracy video and reposted it on Twitter. 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. I quickly realized my mistake and took it down, but the damage was done.”

“By some miracle it seemingly slipped under the media’s radar, I was never asked about it so I never spoke of it again, afraid that calling attention to it would have the opposite of the intended effect – it could increase the views of those conspiracy videos, and selfishly, inform even more people I was ignorant, self absorbed, and tone deaf enough to share one in the first place,” she added.

Rousey reportedly shared the video in January 2013, about a month after the December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut that left 26 people dead, including 20 young students.

“Honestly I deserve to be hated, labeled, detested, resented and worse for it,” Rousey wrote. “I deserve to lose out on every opportunity, I should have been canceled, I would have deserved it. I still do. 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 so sorry for the hurt I caused. I can’t even begin to imagine the pain you’ve endured and words cannot describe how thoroughly remorseful and ashamed I am of myself for contributing to it. I’ve regretted it every day of my life since and will continue to do so until the day I die.”

She then issued a warning: “To anyone else that’s fallen down the black hole of bullshit. 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. You’re doing nothing but hurting others and yourself. Regardless of how many bridges you’ve burned over it, stop digging yourself a deeper hole, don’t get wrapped up in the sunk cost fallacy, no matter how long you’ve gone down the wrong road, you should still turn back.”

Rousey had a winning career in the UFC and WWE fighting leagues, and prior to that she was the first American woman to win an Olympic medal in judo when she took home the bronze at the 2008 Summer Olympics. Her acting credits include appearances in the action movies “The Expendables 3” (2014), “Furious 7” (2015) and “Mile 22” (2018), among others.