Two weeks before fighting Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather Jr. sat down with Katie Couric for an interview. During that interview, Mayweather stated that his ex-girlfriend Josie Harris was high on drugs when he battered her. In December 2011, Mayweather was found guilty of domestic violence and a Las Vegas judged sentenced him to 90 days in jail.
“Did I kick, stomp and beat someone? No, that didn’t happen,” Floyd told Couric. “Did I restrain a woman that was on drugs? Yes, I did. So if they say that’s domestic violence, then, you know what? I’m guilty. I’m guilty of restraining someone.”
Harris, who has three children with Mayweather, is now suing her ex for $20 million. Harris says that the drug accusations made by Mayweather were false and humiliating. According to TMZ Sports, Dan Friedlandler, Harris’ lawyer, said that Mayweather told lies in the interview and “knowingly fabricated in order to hype Mayweather's upcoming fight with Pacquiao, to avoid bad press by deflecting responsibility for beating the mother of his children.”
Last year Harris’ son Koraun Mayweather explained what he witnessed the night his father beat up his mother:
[My dad] said to lock my door and stay in my room. I sat there and thought about what I was going to do next. Just for like a minute. So I ran and I tried to go through the front door to go to the [security] gate. But then his friend [James McNair] came through the door and blocked off the stairway for me to go through. Then I went back into my room and locked the door and then ran back out my bathroom and then hopped over the gate and went to the main entrance gate. I just told [the guard] that my mom was getting hurt and to call the ambulance and the police.
Koraun ended the interview by saying that his father is a coward.
Days before the Mayweather fight, a written statement by a then-10-year-old Koraun was released and immediately went viral:
Mayweather has not commented on the lawsuit.