The world’s media have been gleefully roasting US Olympian Ryan Lochte over a high heat all this week, since it emerged that his tale of being robbed at gunpoint in Rio was mostly a crock of shit.
It turned out that, instead of the hectic mugging he initially described, Lochte and some rowdy teammates had gotten themselves in trouble for vandalising a gas station bathroom, then paid what seemed to be a bribe to stay out of trouble.
The swimmer went as far as to hire Justin Bieber‘s former crisis manager – the guy who deflected attention away from the Biebs’ 2011 paternity scandal – to deal the fallout from his problem, and that move now appears to be paying off.
Earlier today, Lochte’s interview with NBC‘s Matt Lauer – his first since the scandal broke – aired on US television, and it was a cracker. In it, the swimmer owned up to his “immature” behaviour, and admitting that his original story was “exaggerated” at best.
The first thing that leaps out in the below video is that Lochte’s bleached blonde hair is gone, replaced with a more conservative “I’m sorry I fucked up and lied to all your faces” brown.
Admittedly, the pool chemicals in Rio had started to turn his platinum blonde locks a peculiar shade of green, so it was probably time to update the old look anyhow, but the scandal pretty much made it a necessity.
When asked about his claims of being robbed in Rio, Lochte said “I’m taking full responsibility for it … I over-exaggerated that story. If I’d never done that, we wouldn’t be in this mess … It was my immature behaviour.”
Lauer pressed Lochte on the fact that he and his mates portrayed themselves as victims of a robbery “on the mean streets of Rio”, when in fact, they merely “negotiated a settlement to cover up some dumb behaviour.”
Lochte said that, from his point of view, it’s all a matter of perspective:
“It’s how you want to make it look like. Whether you call it a robbery, whether you call it extortion, or us paying just for the damages, like, we don’t know. All we know is that there was a gun pointed in our direction, and we were demanded to give money …We just wanted to get out of there. There was a gun pointed in our direction. We were all frightened. And we wanted to get out of there as quick as possible. And the only way we knew is — this guy saying, ‘You have to give him money.’ So we gave him money, and we got out.”
Asked how he felt when he left Brazil, only to sit at home in America and see his teammates detained as they tried to board a flight, Lochte got tearful and admitted he’d let his buddies down:
The first part of the interview aired on Saturday night in the US, during NBC’s nightly news; the second is due to air on Monday, on the US edition of Today. We can’t wait to find out what part two will disgorge.
Source: Variety.
Photo: NBC.
