Ronda Rousey has apologised for sharing a conspiracy video about the Sandy Hook tragedy 11-years ago.
‘Rowdy’ appeared to be questioning the accepted version of events surrounding the primary school mass shooting, which claimed the lives of 26 people in December 2012.
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The former UFC bantamweight champion quickly took the video off her social media account, but more than a decade later she feels compelled to say sorry for breathing life into the conspiracy theory.
Rousey recently did a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) and a significant portion of the questions were asking her to address her thoughts on Sandy Hook.
Now she’s issued a grovelling apology, which she accepts comes way too late.
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"I can't say how many times I've redrafted this apology over the last 11 years," Rousey said in a statement shared to her X – formerly known as Twitter - account.
"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 realised my mistake and took it down, but the damage was done.
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"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.
"I drafted a thousandth apology to include in my last memoir, but my publisher begged me to take it out, saying it would overshadow everything else and do more harm than good.
"So I convinced myself that apologising would just reopen the wound for no other reason than me selfishly trying to make myself feel better, that I would hurt those suffering even more and possibly lead more people down the black hole of conspiracy bull**** by it being brought up again just so I could try to shake the label of being a 'Sandy Hook truther'.”
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Rousey accepts that addressing this issue may have a detrimental impact on her career – but she feels an overwhelming urge to say sorry to anyone she negatively impacted with her post.
She added: "But honestly I deserve to be hated, labelled, detested, resented and worse for it.
"I deserve to lose out on every opportunity, I should have been cancelled, I would have deserved it. I still do.
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"I apologise 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.”
Rousey ended her statement by urging anyone touting baseless conspiracy theories to think twice before posting them online like she did.
"And to anyone that's fallen down the black hole of bull****,” Rousey said.
“It doesn't make you edgy, or an independent thinker, you're not doing your due diligence entertaining every possibility by digesting these conspiracies.
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"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."
