Tarnished tennis star Serena Williams claimed Wednesday that a Rolling Stone reporter put the hateful words about the Steubenville, Ohio, rape victim into her mouth.
“What was written ― what I supposedly said ― is insensitive and hurtful,” Williams said in a statement posted on her website. “I by no means would say or insinuate that she was at all to blame.”
Williams said she is now “reaching out to the girl’s family to let her know that I am deeply sorry for what was written in the Rolling Stone article.”
The top-ranked female tennis player in the world was forced to do damage control after she was quoted saying the 16-year-old “shouldn’t have put herself in that position” in excerpts from an upcoming article by Stephen Rodrick that were published by Deadspin.
Williams, on her site, insisted, “what happened in Steubenville was a real shock for me.”
“I
Cheap Studio Beats was deeply saddened,” she wrote. “For someone to be raped, and at only sixteen, is such a horrible tragedy! For both families involved ? that of the rape victim and of the accused.”
RELATED: SERENA WILLIAMS: GIRL IN OHIO RAPE CASE ALSO TO BLAME
Keith Srakocic/Pool
Trent Mays, 17, left, and 16-year-old Ma'Lik Richmond were sentenced to time in a juvenile facility for the rape. Williams reportedly suggested they may have been punished too harshly.
Williams, 31, called herself someone who has “fought all of my career for women’s equality, women’s equal rights” and said
Diddy Beats Cheap she was praying for the “innocent sixteen year old child.”
Rolling Stone declined to comment on Williams’ remarks, and Rodrick could not be reached. But Rodrick is no cub sports reporter. His work has been included in the The Best American Sports Writing series four times.
And, according to Rodrick’s reporting, Williams sang a different tune when she saw a TV report about the two Ohio
Cheap Beats Headphones football players being tossed in jail for the brutal sexual assault.
“Do you think it was fair, what they got?” Williams asked, shaking her head. “They did something stupid, but I don’t know.”
Then Williams dug herself in further, Rodrick reported.
“I’m not blaming the girl,” she said, “but if you’re a 16-year-old and you’re drunk like that, your parents should teach you: Don’t take drinks from other people. She’s 16, why was she that drunk where she doesn’t remember?”
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Keith Srakocic/Pool
Ma'Lik Richmond cries after the verdict in his rape trial.
Williams went on to say that what happened to the girl “could have been much worse.”
“She’s lucky,” she was quoted as saying. “Obviously I don’t know, maybe she wasn’t a virgin, but she shouldn’t have put herself in that position, unless they slipped her something, then that’s different.”
Two pigskin punks ― 17-year-old quarterback Trent Mays
Cheap Beats Audio Headphones and 16-year-old wide receiver Ma’Lik Richmond ― were convicted in March of taking advantage of the bombed girl at a series of booze-fueled parties last summer.
Both boys used their hands to penetrate the helpless girl.
Mays also took lurid photos of the victim
Beats Studio For Cheap that were later
Cheap Beats posted on social media sites, sparking national outrage.
For this, Mays was hit with a minimum sentence of two years in a juvenile correctional facility. Richmond got a minimum of one year in the same facility.
Both could remain jailed until they turn 21, and both could be branded registered sex offenders for the rest of their lives.
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