Ronda Rousey Offers Apology for Sharing Sandy Hook Conspiracy Video Early in Career

Patrick Andres | Aug 23, 2024

Jan 29, 2022; St. Louis, MO, USA; Ronda Rousey during the Royal Rumble The Dome at America's Center. / Joe Camporeale-USA TODAY Sports

More than a decade after reposting a conspiracy theory around the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., ex-UFC fighter and WWE wrestler Ronda Rousey is apologizing.

The former Olympic judoka offered a four-paragraph mea culpa early Friday morning on social media, detailing why she felt like she needed to acknowledge her 2013 mistake.

"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," Rousey said, calling herself "ignorant, self-absorbed and tone-deaf" for sharing one.

Rousey was just starting out in her UFC career at the time, and held the promotion's women's bantamweight title. Originally, she doubled down on her sharing the video and her manager had to apologize on her behalf.

"I deserve to be hated, labeled, detested, resented and worse for it," Rousey wrote. "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."

The Riverside, Calif. native closed her apology by warning of the seductive power of conspiracy theories—whose proliferation in American life has served as one of the 21st century's defining cultural trends.

"It doesn't make you edgy, or an independent thinker, you're not doing your due diligence entertaining every possibility by digesting these conspiracies," Rousey said. "They will only make you feel powerless, afraid, miserable and isolated."