Subscribe
Hellobeautiful Featured Video
CLOSE

In light of Ray Rice’s controversy, former Baltimore Ravens linebacker and current ESPN analyst Ray Lewis is calling out the NFL and his former teammate for his domestic violence scandal that has been on the forefront of the news lately, but some say Lewis is one of the last people who should be speaking up.

Lewis commented in reference to reports alleging that the Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti, president Dick Cass, and General Manager Ozzie Newsome tried to cover up for Rice the night he attacked his wife in an elevator and before footage of it could be released to the public. Of course, the cover up didn’t work because the entire footage from the elevator was released early September. Rice will appeal his suspension from the team by arguing that the NFL based their decision off of the edited tape that TMZ first released. TMZ made the disclaimer under their original post of the tape: “This video is a cleaned up version of the raw surveillance elevator video — the raw is jerky … so we smoothed it out.” The website released the raw footage soon after.

MUST READ: Queen Latifah Shares Personal Experience With Domestic Violence: ‘It’s A Problem For All Of Us’ [VIDEO]

While the controversy continues to unfold, Lewis had some pretty candid commentary on his former employer and coworker:

“If the NFL could do this all over again, they would. Whether they saw the tape or not, who really knows outside of the people who was actually there to know what went on? But sometimes I think we get lost in trying to figure out who’s head to go after, who to attack now about what they didn’t do.

Sometimes we forget why we’re here. We’re here for one reason and one reason only. We’re here for domestic violence. We’re here because we saw a friend of mine brutally hit his wife in the face in an elevator. There’s some things you can cover up and then there’s some things you can’t. Right now is a sad day for me because the reputation that I left in this organization, this isn’t it. This isn’t it. What was built that many of years took hard work to get that. Took a hell of a reputation to put on the line…Ray Rice put a lot of people in jeopardy with his actions, a lot of people at jeopardy, not just himself. And he needs to understand that because none of this happens if that happened that night in the elevator didn’t happen. If I ask for anything in this whole thing I ask let there be light.”

Lewis’ response in the midst of Rice’s controversy is interesting, considering that Lewis was embroiled in a controversy of his own many years ago and some critics say that he should keep his mouth shut. On January 31, 2000 Lewis and two other men, Reginald Oakley and Joseph Sweeting, were reportedly involved in an altercation that resulted in two men being killed after a Super Bowl party. The athlete’s murder charges were dropped two weeks later in exchange for Oakley and Sweeting’s testimonies. Lewis pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of obstruction of justice. Oh the irony as he calls out this current coverup…

Should Lewis’ criminal past discount him from speaking out on Ray Rice’s domestic violence scandal and how the NFL has been handling it? 

RELATED STORIES: 

Ne-Yo Is Torn About Ray Rice’s Domestic Violence Scandal [VIDEO]

The Internet Photoshops A COVERGIRL Ad In Protest Of Domestic Violence In The NFL

4 Women Were Hired To Create The NFL Domestic Violence Policies, But None Were Black

Celebrities Who’ve Survived Domestic Violence
0 photos

For 2024’s iteration of MadameNoire and HelloBeautiful’s annual series Women to Know, we knew we wanted to celebrate the people who help make the joys of film and television possible. To create art is to create magic. This year, we spotlight Hollywood Executive’s changing the face of cinema.