Dana White said ‘you don’t recover from hitting a woman’…can he stay UFC boss?

Dana White is facing calls to step down from his role as UFC president after a 2014 interview resurfaced in which he claimed you “never recover from laying your hands on a woman.”

White apologized Tuesday after video surfaced of him publicly slapping his wife in the face during an argument on New Year’s Eve.

White, 53, has been married to his wife Anne since 1996. The couple had three children together in the last 26 years when his net worth soared to a reported $500 million with the development of the UFC, the world’s most popular mixed martial arts advertisement.

But his position at the top of the UFC could now be on the line after a 2014 interview surfaced in which he responded to video of former Baltimore Ravens showing Ray Rice abusing his wife.

Lorenzo Fertitta, Teressa Fertitta, Anne White and Dana White (left to right)

UFC boss Dana White has apologized for slapping his wife on New Year’s Eve

Speaking to FOX Sports Live at the time, White said: “It’s a tough question. First off, the video is terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. You’re talking about a guy who’s been in the fight business since he was 19. It’s the most unsettling thing you’ll ever see.

“What’s just as bad as the punch is that he shows no remorse afterwards. You know, when you’ve done something out of anger and you’re like, ‘Oh my God. What have I done?’ This guy doesn’t have that. I don’t know everything about what Roger Goodell did or knew or how it was handled, but it’s definitely bad. I can tell you one thing: I don’t want to be Roger Goodell.

“We were people by letting these guys and other guys make amends for what they did and come back. There’s one thing you never shy away from, and that’s laying your hands on a woman. It’s been like that at the UFC since we started here. You don’t flinch when you lay hands on a woman.”

White and his wife celebrated New Year’s Eve at El Squid Roe in Cabo San Lucas, where the clip was filmed. Footage shows White appearing to say something to Anne, who responds by hitting him. He then slaps her on the back before the two are separated.

Addressing the incident to TMZ, the UFC chief said: “My wife and I were out on New Year’s Eve Saturday night. Unfortunately that happened.

“I’m one of those guys who says there’s never an excuse for a man to put his hands on a woman, and now I’m talking about it here on TMZ.

“It’s one of those horrible situations. I’m embarrassed. We have three children and since the video surfaced we have shown it to the children and are now more focused on our family.

“People will have their opinion on this and people’s opinion would be right, especially in my case. You never attack a woman.”

His wife Anne is quoted by TMZ as saying: “To say this is out of character for him is an understatement – nothing like this has happened before.

“Unfortunately we both drank too much on New Year’s Eve and things got out of hand on both sides. We discussed this as a family and we apologized to each other.

White said he had no apologies for his actions and said he was “embarrassed” by the clip

White has been married to his partner Anne for 26 years and they have three children

White’s marriage has been largely shielded from public view, although his mother June wrote in a salacious 2011 book that he had “turned his back on his family and friends, who were there for him when he needed help and support.”

Dana and Anne reportedly met in eighth grade in Nevada, and though he moved back and forth between the Las Vegas area and Maine area, the two dated in high school before their 1996 wedding.

Their courtship came during a difficult time in White’s life, when he dropped out of two colleges and held a series of low-paying jobs laying asphalt and working as a doorman.

He would eventually open a gym in the Boston area but returned to Las Vegas after allegedly being threatened by notorious mobster White Bulger and his associate Kevin Weeks.

White, who has led the UFC since 2001, previously said there is no turning back for fighters who are violent towards women

To this day, White claims he doesn’t understand why Bulger and Weeks felt they were owed money, but he took their threats seriously enough to move back to Nevada.

“He basically said, ‘You owe us money,'” White said, according to NBC Sports. “It was about $2,500, which to me was about $25,000 at the time, and I said, ‘You owe us money.’

“Actually, it was a guy named Kevin Weeks … he’s Whitey’s right-hand man,” White continued. “… basically said I owe him some money and I didn’t pay him. This went on for a while and one day I was at my house and I got a call and they said, “You owe us the money by 1pm tomorrow.” I literally hung up, picked up the phone and called Delta and shopped Ticket to Vegas.”

Bulger was later captured in 2011 and killed in prison in 2018 at the age of 89.

In the years since, White has admitted to wagering large amounts of money, including losing $1 million in the 2007 boxing match between Jermain Taylor and Kelly Pavlik.

“I was in Cabo relaxing and having fun,” White said, as quoted by TalkSport. “That spoiled my fun. Ruined my whole trip.«

He was also involved in a sextape scandal in which an exotic dancer allegedly taped a sexual encounter between the two in Brazil. The dancer also claims she and White had an affair during his marriage.

Her boyfriend would allegedly use this alleged affair to extort money from White, which would lead to a criminal case against the man.

White was later sued by the friend, who claimed White offered him money to plead guilty to racketeering. White has denied the allegation.

According to the complaint, White gave the exotic dancer $10,000 to have sex with him, but the lawsuit was eventually dismissed in October 2020.