Ronda Rousey says she had no idea that her comments on suicide would cause such a stir, but hopes she’s helping erase the stigma around the topic.
Ronda Rousey made a splash when she told Ellen that she had some suicidal thoughts after her UFC 193 loss to Holly Holm. But, to hear here tell it now, she never intended her comments to be anything especially earth shattering, just an honest answer as to how losing for the first time in MMA affected her.
TMZ recently caught Rousey for an impromptu interview, where they asked the former UFC champion to elaborate on just why she wants to speak so openly on the topic of suicide:
“There’s a history of suicide in my family. My dad and his father both took their lives and I think that suicide is the no. 1 killer of young teens as well. I do a lot of work with Didi Hirsch, which is a free mental health clinic here in LA. And the last even I went to for them, their whole thing was erasing the stigma… Of taking the stigma away from everything like suicide and making it actually acceptable for people to talk about it and look for help and to not feel like ashamed of themselves for it. I think that should be encouraged.
“It’s not about damning people and I feel like there’s been an overly negative light on that. It’s something real people are going through, not something like a weakness that we should condemn.”
She elaborated on just how caught off guard she was by the whole wave of press her interview caused, as well:
“I’ve never shied away from talking about suicide or anything like that. I mean, it’s really heavily affected our family and anything that I could do to make sure that it affects as few people as possible, I’d be happy to do that. I don’t see why it’s looked at as a bad thing. I only saw how big of a deal it was afterward, I was just being honest. I didn’t know Ellen was going to ask that and I just gave her an honest answer. Now, in hindsight, I’m realizing it’s a lot more abnormal than I thought.”
And, of course, finished the whole thing with a quick look at Holly Holm’s upcoming fight with Miesha Tate, making it clear that she hopes Tate loses, so that nobody beats Holm before she does in their rematch.
At the moment, Rousey is still on hiatus from MMA competition, with no word on when exactly she’s expected to return.