‘I’ve owned this’: Dana White refuses to resign as UFC president after hitting wife in video

White admitted ‘there’s never an excuse’ for domestic violence but said the damage to his reputation was punishment enough for his actions

Dana White has refused to resign from his role as UFC president after a video emerged which showed him slapping his wife in a Mexican nightclub.

White initially apologised for the incident – in which the 53-year-old twice hit his wife of 27 years, Anne, in the face after she had slapped him – in an interview with TMZ, but for the first time on Wednesday he answered questions from the media.

White admitted his actions were indefensible but said the stain on his reputation was punishment enough.

“What should the repercussions be?” he said. “I take 30 days off? How does that hurt me? I told you guys as we were going through [the Covid-19 pandemic], Covid could last 10 years, and I could sit it out. It’s much like Covid, actually. Me leaving hurts the company. Hurts my employees. Hurts the fighters. Doesn’t hurt me. I could’ve left in 2016 [when the company was acquired by Endeavor]. Do I need to reflect? I’ve been against this [domestic violence]. I’ve owned this. I’m telling you that I’m wrong.

“Here’s my punishment: I have to walk around for however long I live, and this is how I’m labeled now. My other punishment is that I’m sure a lot of people, whether it be media, fighters, friends, acquaintances, who had respect for me might not have respect for me now. There’s a lot of things I have to deal with the rest of my life that’s way more of a punishment than, what, I take a 30-day or 60-day absence?”

White was asked whether he still believed what he said in a 2014 interview with Fox Sports which recently resurfaced, in which he remarked: “You never bounce back from putting your hands on a woman.”

He said he still stands by those words. “You don’t bounce back from this. For the rest of my life, people will label me that. I did it.”

He added: “One thing I do want to clarify in this thing that I didn’t talk about on TMZ, because I didn’t expect it or I didn’t see it coming, is the people that are defending me. There’s never an excuse. There’s no defence for this, and people should not be defending me, no matter what. All the criticism I’ve received this week is 100 per cent warranted.”

White’s wife, with whom the UFC president has three children, has also spoken out on the New Year’s Eve incident since it became public.

She told TMZ: “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 apologised to each other. I just hope people will respect our privacy for the sake of our kids.”