Janay Rice Says Elevator Incident Was God's Plan To Spotlight Abused Women

Janay Rice says the elevator attack was all part of god's plan. Janay Rice and her husband NFL player, Ray Rice came to public attention after video emerged of the player hitting Janay, then his fiancee, in an elevator, and knocking her out. In another video, he drags her unconscious body out of the elevator. The videos went viral and Ray Rice was cut from his team, Baltimore Ravens, and suspended indefinitely from the NFL.

After an appeal, the suspension has been lifted and Ray Rice is now looking for a new team to take him on. Now his wife, Ray Rice has stood by him through it all. In this new interview with Matt Lauer of NBC Today, Janay Rice says she believes she and Ray were "chosen" to help bring awareness to domestic violence... thoughts? Read excerpts below...


Matt Lauer: You have remained silent. Has it been hard not to speak out about this?

Rice: Yes. That's been the hardest part, is having so much of your life made public and have it all be negative. That's the hardest part. Is not having control over anything that has to do with you. It's a natural thing for a human to want to come out and say, 'No, no. That's not me,' or, 'No, that's not true.' But it's like a battle that we just can't win.

Lauer: I guess it was about four days or so after the incident at the casino that the tape, the first tape, came out, the one that was taken outside the elevator. Had you seen the tape?

Rice: I saw the first one.

Lauer: So did you see it before it was released to the public?

Rice: No. We just knew about it.

Lauer: Were you dreading the moment that that tape came out?

Rice: Yes. We knew that it was going to happen. We didn't know exactly when it was going to happen. But there was no preparing us for that at all. When I saw that it was horrible you can't make excuses for anything, but we were highly intoxicated. And in the moment you're not thinking about, 'Oh my god. I'm on camera in an elevator.' So of course people are going to read into everything and pick at everything about the situation. We understand that.'

Lauer: Have you seen the second tape?

Rice: No. I refuse. I refuse. I'm not going to let the public bring me back there.

Lauer: So me just ask you directly and bluntly. Prior to what we have now seen in that elevator was there ever any incident of violence in your relationship with Ray or has there been any incident of violence since that elevator incident.

Rice: No

Rice: No. Not at all. Ray knows me. And there's no way. He knows what he would have to deal with, you know, if this was something. You know, I'm not going to sit there in silence and let something happen to me — and God forbid, in front of my child, just like, let it happen? There's no way.