Dana White tries to downplay domestic violence incident: “There’s never, ever an excuse for a guy to put his hands on a woman. And now here I am”

UFC President Dana White was filmed on New Year’s Eve slapping his wife Anna after she had first hit him. White and his wife got into a domestic violence incident at a nightclub in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. On Monday, TMZ posted a video of the encounter.

White quickly released a statement outlining what had occurred.

White told TMZ:

“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. I’m one of the guys, you heard me say for years: There’s never, ever an excuse for a guy to put his hands on a woman. And now here I am on TMZ talking about it.”

“My wife and I have been married for almost 30 years. We’ve known each other since we were almost 12 years old. We’ve obviously been through some s**t together and we’ve got three kids, and this is one of those situations that’s horrible.”

White continued:

“I’m embarrassed. But it’s also one of those situations where we’re more concerned about our kids. We have three kids, and obviously since the video popped up, we’ve shown the kids the video and we’re more focused on our family right now.”

“People are going to have their opinions on this. Most of the people’s opinions will be right – especially in my case. You don’t put your hands on a woman ever. My wife and I obviously love each other. We’ve been together for a very long time. We’ve known each other since we were very little and this is just one of those unfortunate situations.”

White claims that there is “no excuse” for his actions against his wife. He also admitted that he had consumed alcohol that evening.

“ ’m literally making no excuses for this thing at all. It’s never happened before. It’s the first time that it’s ever happened, and people are going to say what they’re going to say. It is what it is. And whatever people do say, it’s deserved. I deserve it. It happened.”

“I don’t know why it happened and my wife and I have apologized to each other, we’ve apologized to our kids, and this is one of those things that everyone is going to chime in. I could care less what people think about this. We’re more concerned about our kids and taking care of our family.”

Dana’s wife Anna also discussed with TMZ what had transpired between them:

“Dana and I have been married for almost 30 years. 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.”