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The wife of Ray Rice broke her silence a day after the all-star running back was released by the Baltimore Ravens following the release of a video showing her getting knocked out by her husband.
"I woke up this morning feeling like I had a horrible nightmare, feeling like I'm mourning the death of my closest friend," Janay Palmer wrote on Instagram.
"But to have to accept the fact that it's reality...," she wrote.
Ray Rice, 27, stood to make $4 million this year.
The video was originally released Monday morning by TMZ.
This is what a two game suspension looks like -- Ray Rice delivering a a crushing punch to his fiancee's face, knocking her out cold ... and TMZ Sports has the shocking video.
In a longer version of the video seen by the Associated Press Monday night, the couple can be heard shouting obscenities at each other in February in the elevator of an Atlantic City casino.
She appears to spit in the face of the three-time Pro Bowl running back right before he knocks her out with a punch to the face.
The latest video, shown to the AP Monday night, includes audio and is longer than the grainy TMZ video released earlier on Monday. After the TMZ video made its way around the Internet, the Baltimore Ravens cut Rice and the NFL suspended him indefinitely.
The couple was engaged at the time but have since gotten married.
On Instagram, she pleaded with the media and the public to leave them alone and said she still loves him.
"No one knows the pain that hte [sic] media & unwanted options from the public has caused my family," Palmer wrote. "To make us relive a moment in our lives that we regret every day is a horrible thing. To take something away from the man I love that he has worked his ass off for all his life just to gain ratings is horrific."
"THIS IS OUR LIFE!," she continued. "What don't you all get. If your intentions were to hurt us, embarrass us, make us feel alone, take all happiness away, you've succeeded on so many levels. Just know we will continue to grow & show the world what real love is! Ravensnation we love you!"
Mel Evans / The Associated Press
Rice holds hands with his wife, Janay Palmer, as they arrive at Atlantic County Criminal Courthouse in Mays Landing, N.J.
Rice was originally suspended for two games.
The videos show Rice and Palmer in an elevator at an Atlantic City casino. Each hits the other before Rice knocks Palmer off her feet and into a railing.
The higher-quality video shown to the AP shows Rice made no attempt to cover up the incident. After Palmer collapses, he drags her out of the elevator and is met by some hotel staff. One of them can be heard saying, "She's drunk, right?" And then, "No cops." But Rice didn't respond.
The video was shown to the AP on condition of anonymity because the official isn't authorized to release it.
Coach John Harbaugh said he met with Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti, team president Dick Cass and general manager Ozzie Newsome after they saw the TMZ video, and they made the decision to let Rice go.
"It's something we saw for the first time today, all of us," Harbaugh said. "It changed things, of course. It made things a little bit different."
On July 31, Rice told the media his actions were "inexcusable" and "something I have to live with the rest of my life."
"I know that's not who I am as a man," he said at the time. "That's not who my mom raised me to be. If anybody knows me, they know I was raised by a single parents, and that was my mother. I let her down. I let my wife down. I let my daughter down. I let my wife's parents down. I let the whole Baltimore community down. I let my teammates down. I let so many people down because of 30 seconds of my life that I know I can't get back."
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The action represented a complete reversal for the team, even though an Atlantic City police summons stated that Rice caused "bodily injury to Janay Palmer, specifically by striking her with his hand, rendering her unconscious."
The Ravens had used words like "respect" and "proud" in referring to Rice following his arrest.
When the NFL announced Rice's two-game suspension for domestic violence on July 24, Newsome said: "We respect the efforts Ray has made to become the best partner and father he can be. That night was not typical of the Ray Rice we know and respect. We believe that he will not let that one night define who he is, and he is determined to make sure something like this never happens again."
Asked Monday night if Rice misled him, Harbaugh said he didn't want to get into "all that."
"I don't think of it that way. Everything I said in terms of what I believe, I stand by," he said. "I believe that still, and I'll always believe those things, and (we'll) always stand in support of them as a couple, and that's not going to change."
Rice said in a news conference this summer that his actions that night were "inexcusable." But the Ravens never took action against him until after the second video was released.
The NFL, which has been working hard to promote the game to women, also took action after the explicit video was released. Commissioner Roger Goodell announced that, based on the new video evidence, Rice has been suspended indefinitely.
"We requested from law enforcement any and all information about the incident, including the video from inside the elevator," NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said Monday morning. "That video was not made available to us and no one in our office has seen it until today."
Rice's lawyer, Michael Diamondstein, declined to comment when contacted by The Associated Press.
"Obviously, any video that depicts an act of violence in that video is disturbing to watch. For our union, we have an unshakable position against any violence, certainly domestic violence included," NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said at the Seahawks' facility in Renton, Washington. "It will be a time for us now to catch up with everything else that has occurred today."
He had been charged with felony aggravated assault in the case, but in May he was accepted into a pretrial intervention program that allowed him to avoid jail time and could lead to the charge being purged from his record.
After Goodell drew criticism not being tough enough on Rice, he wrote a letter to all 32 NFL owners in August saying he "didn't get it right."
First-time offenders now face a six-game suspension.
Rice began his suspension Sunday, when the Ravens opened their season with a 23-16 loss to the Cincinnati Bengals. He was scheduled to return after Thursday night's game against Pittsburgh.
He leaves the Ravens as the second-leading rusher in franchise history, behind only Jamal Lewis. A three-time Pro Bowl selection, Rice is the team's career leader in total yards from scrimmage (9,214) and is the only player in Ravens history to rush for 1,000 yards in four consecutive seasons.
With files from the Associated Press
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