Cristiano Ronaldo rape allegations: Juventus star says ‘truth will out one day’ as he defends his reputation
Kathryn Mayorga accuses the 33-year-old of sexually assaulting her in a Las Vegas hotel in 2009
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Cristiano Ronaldo admits that the rape allegations levelled against him by Kathryn Mayorga are “interfering” in his life but insists he is confident “truth will out one day”.
Mayorga claims Ronaldo sexually assaulted her in a Las Vegas hotel in 2009 and then dispatched a team of “fixers” to obstruct the criminal investigation and manipulate her into keeping quiet for a payment of $375,000.
Ronaldo has consistently and strenuously denied the allegations, insisting his “conscience is clear”, but police in Las Vegas have re-opened an investigation into the incident and Nike, one of the Juventus forward’s biggest sponsors, have said they are “deeply concerned” by Mayorga’s claims.
Asked in an interview with France Football if the situation is playing on his mind, Ronaldo replied: “Of course, this story is interfering in my life. I have a partner, four children, an ageing mother, sisters, a brother, a family with whom I am very close.
“Not to mention my reputation, which is that of someone exemplary ... Imagine what it means when someone accuses you of rape, whether you have all that or not.
“I know who I am and what I did. Truth will out one day. And the people who criticise me or seek to expose my life today, who make it into a circus, these people will see.”
Mayorga’s claims have cast a shadow over Ronaldo’s first few months at Juventus following a stunning £99.2 million move from Real Madrid in July.
He ended a nine-year spell in the Spanish capital as Madrid’s record goalscorer and winner of 15 major trophies, including four Champions League titles – but he added that he had no doubt it was time to leave when he began to feel that president Florentino Perez no longer valued him.
“I felt it inside the club, especially from the president, that they no longer considered me the same way that they did in the start,” he added. “In the first four or five years there, I had the feeling of being ‘Cristiano Ronaldo’. Less afterwards.
“The president looked at me through eyes that didn’t want to say the same thing, as if I was no longer indispensable to them, if you know what I mean.
“That’s what made me think about leaving. Sometimes I’d look at the news, where they were saying I was asking to leave. There was a bit of that, but the truth is that I always had the impression that the president would not hold me back.
“If it had all been about money, I’d have moved to China, where I would have earned five times as much than here [at Juventus] or at Real. I did not come to Juve for the money. I earned the same in Madrid, if not more.
“The difference is that, at Juve, they really wanted me. They told me that and made it clear. They showed me that.”