Joining dozens of other celebrities and musicians in reacting to recent news of Ray Rice hitting his wife and being subsequently dropped from the Baltimore Ravens and banned from the NFL indefinitely, Los Angeles emcee Glasses Malone spoke with XXL about the incident.
Footage from the February 15 altercation was first released in April before a full video documenting the entire incident surfaced on September 8. The latest security footage shows Rice punching his wife unconscious in the elevator following an altercation and then dragging her out into a lobby.
Coming to Rice’s defense, Malone alluded that the running back hitting his wife was justified—”if you hit someone, be prepared to get hit back”—and said outright that men and women “are not equal.”
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“If you hit someone, be prepared to get hit back,” Malone said. “Women are fighting for rights to be equal. They think they are men. Now, I’m looking at Ray Rice and his wife and they look like they are intoxicated. She actually slaps him. They got in the elevator and she got in his face. Whatever they’re doing, that’s their couple thing. She hit him and he backed up. She rushed into him and he threw a check and then hit her. My point is, I get it, in your mind. Women are saying, ‘oh you’re stronger than us.’ Then stop saying we’re equal.”
Addressing the NFL’s disciplinary response, Malone leveraged blame on Janay Rice, the football player’s wife, for the abuse.
“Does he deserve a suspension, sure,” he said. “We don’t think it’s okay for men and women to fight. So suspend him for two games. But to take away his pay and indefinitely suspend him when there’s worse things that’s happening in the NFL, I don’t know if that’s really fair. I mean, if she got over [it] and married this man, she must have understood the place they’re in and she loves him. So for the rest of the world to come up with the act of chivalry—chivalry died with the Women’s Rights Movement. It’s dead. All of these things link together and they leak into situations like this. Why would a woman physically challenge a man if you know he’s stronger?
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“I’m really disappointed in people, especially women,” he continued. “I’m feeling a certain way with men too. The idea of not hitting a woman is all within chivalry. You cannot do what a man does. That’s not your purpose in life, that’s not your role. The oxymoron is for a feminist group, a group that’s pushing equality to complain about this situation. This is how men deal with physical disagreements. If you assault, us we respond physically. [Look at] Solange in the elevator with Jay Z. Say she fuckin’ drops Jay Z. She hits him and he falls. Now people looking at Jay Z saying you let Solange knock you out. Do you buy his records? Do you respect a man that allows a woman to knock him out? No you don’t. So why is Solange allowed to assault Jay Z? Say it’s just family drama and she’s allowed at the next award [show]. If it’s the other way around, Jay Z is not allowed at the next award [show]. Stop pushing equality.”
Malone finished by outlining his view of gender roles (which he says is biblical) before equating the incident to a “fight” instead of domestic violence.
“I believe a man should provide and protect for his family, and a woman should nurture and love hers,” he said. “We have different roles, but we are not equal. My role and responsibility should be greater because God designed it to be greater…I fought all of my best friends, we all had physical altercations with each other. Friends and partners fight. You can’t start a fight, then say afterwards that you’re being abused when you got hit back. You can’t do that. Everybody should be held accountable for their words and their actions. Watch what you say. His wife lost a fight. I’m not saying it’s cool, but people who love each other fight. Get the fuck over it.
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“My views are very biblical,” he added. “I never had to hit a woman. If you think I’m sexist, I’m not.”
Chris Brown reacted to the incident in an interview with MTV.
“Help is great,” Brown said of dealing with cause of domestic abuse. “I still talk to my therapist twice a week, and it helps me to…If I’m frustrated and I’m dealing with something, to vent and say what I’m going through so I can hear from an actual clinical person, ‘This is how you should react,’ or ‘It’s good to feel this way because feelings, emotions, and energy are supposed to come and go. It’s not supposed to stay there, you’re not supposed to keep it inside, because it’ll bottle up and you’ll become a monster.’ Dealing with my anger issues and understanding myself has helped me really focus on what’s important and not F up.”
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