Dana White Makes Rare Remarks on 2022 Video of Him Slapping His Wife
Dana White made a rare, fiery statement regarding the 2022 incident where he was seen slapping his wife in a viral video on a recent episode of Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay podcast.
On New Year’s Eve 2022, a video taken at a bar in Mexico caught the UFC CEO slapping a woman in the face. Several days later, White confirmed in a statement that the victim was his wife, Anne White.
"I’m in Cabo, Mexico for the holidays with my family, and my wife and I were out with family on New Year’s Eve, and unfortunately that’s what happened,” White told TMZ (via Yahoo Sports) of the assault on Jan. 2, 2023. “I’m one of the guys, you've heard me say for years. There’s never, ever an excuse for a guy to put his hands on a woman. There was definitely a lot of alcohol, but there’s no excuse. I don’t know why it happened. My wife and I have apologized to each other. We’ve apologized to our kids.”
During their recent sit down, Sharpe asked White directly about the episode. “That had to be the toughest time that you had ever gone through in your life.”
“It wasn’t,” White immediately refuted. “COVID was. Yeah, COVID was way tougher than that.”
White contended that he and his wife were fine, but the incident particularly shook up their children. “The kids had never seen that before,” he admitted. “It was on the world stage, we embarrassed them, you know. And no kids want to see that shit with your parents.”
White clarified, “It wasn’t about getting through it publicly. It was about getting through it personally with my kids…Everybody else can go f--k themselves. It had nothing to do with them. It was about my family. That’s what’s important,” he continued. “The people who know me and know her, they know us and we’re fine. It was my kids. That was something personal between me and my family.”
While never backing down that the New Year’s Eve ‘22 incident was the first time he’d physically harmed his wife, White admitted that he would have difficulty trusting another man’s word if the shoe were on the other foot.
“People still talk about it, and I would have an opinion, too. I would have an opinion seeing that. If that happened there on New Year’s Eve, basically on stage at a club in Mexico, that probably isn’t the first rodeo, you know what I mean,” he reflected. “I would say the same thing, but I know exactly who I am, my kids know who I am, my circle of people that I give a s--t about know who I am and that’s what mattered to me.”
At the time of the incident, Anne White released her own statement in which she noted that the violent act was “out of character” for her husband.
"Dana and I have been married for almost 30 years," Anne told TMZ (via Yahoo Sports). "To say this is out of character for him is an understatement—nothing like this has ever happened before. Unfortunately, we were both drinking too much on New Year’s Eve and things got out of control, on both sides. We’ve talked this through as a family and apologized to each other. I just hope people will respect our privacy for the sake of our kids."
You can watch White's full Club Shay Shay interview below.
If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for confidential support.