Josie Harris filed a lawsuit against ex-boyfriend Floyd Mayweather Jr. claiming that he lied in his interview with Katie Couric prior to his fight with Manny Pacquiao.
According to TMZ Sports, Harris is asking for over $20 million in damages for Mayweather repeatedly knowingly making false statements.
In his interview with Couric, Mayweather was asked about the 2010 incident with Harris in which he was accused of viciously attacking her. Mayweather later pleaded guilty to reduced misdemeanor charges, leading to a 90-day jail sentence. Mayweather told a much different tale from what the arrest report states.
“Did I kick, stomp and beat someone? No, that didn’t happen,” Mayweather told Couric. “I look in your face and say, ‘No, that didn’t happen.’ 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’ lawyer says in the suit that Floyd knowingly lied in his interview with Couric to protect his image and help promote his fight with Pacquiao. Mayweather accused Harris of being on drugs and claims to have just restrained her, when that is not at all what Harris says happened.
The real story according to Harris is that Mayweather was jealous Harris was having a relationship with a new man — NBA player C.J. Watson — took away Harris’ cellphone, and later attacked her inside her home (Mayweather paid for the home and had Harris and their three children living there).
“Did he beat me to a pulp? No, but I had bruises on my body and contusions and [a] concussion because the hits were to the back of my head. I believe it was planned to do that … because the bruises don’t show,” Harris said in a 2013 interview with Yahoo.
Continuing from the Yahoo story where Harris explains what happened:
Mayweather then grabbed her by the hair and punched her in the back of the head “with a closed fist several times,” according to the [arrest] report. He then pulled her off the couch by her hair and twisted her left arm.
[…]
At one point, Mayweather yelled, “I’m going to kill you and the man you are messing around with,” Harris told police. “I’m going to have you both disappear.”According to the arrest report, when Harris screamed for her children to call for help, Mayweather turned to them and warned he would “beat their ass if they left the house and called police.”
Mayweather’s own son, who helped save his mother, even called his father a “coward” for beating up Harris.
This wasn’t the first domestic violence incident between them; Harris accused Mayweather of beating her up in 2005, but she later dropped the charges and admitted she was lying. Really, it seems Mayweather paid her off with expensive gifts and more in exchange for her dropping the charges.
As recently in 2013, Harris posted photo evidence suggesting she and Mayweather were still sleeping together. As of last year she was still supporting Floyd and even got in a fight with one of his other ex-girlfriends. But Harris has learned how controlling Floyd was and is determined to move past that part of her life. She has distanced herself from him and his controlling ways, and she even is publishing a book about their dysfunctional relationship history.
Harris even appeared to comment on the lawsuit with an Instagram post of a heart and the words, “I’m not sorry” written inside them.
Here is the caption she left (edited for profanity):
“People push you to your limits but when you finally explode and fight back they want to call you out your name. Thou shall not take no s—. What you allow is what will continue.
“Strong people don’t “shut up and deal”. They draw a line and don’t let people walk on them. They take action to change their situation.”
