“They want to promote (themselves by using) my name. It’s normal. They want to be famous to say my name, but it is part of the job. I am a happy man and all good.”
Cristiano Ronaldo allegedly raped a US model and then said “sorry, I’m usually a gentleman”, according to court papers filed in Las Vegas which the star has branded “fake news”, Daily Mail reports
Kathryn Mayorga, a 34-year-old teacher who was an aspiring model at the time of the alleged assault, claims Ronaldo raped her in a bathroom at the Palms Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas in the early hours of June 13, 2009.
The ex-Man United, 33, player spoke out in a video on Instagram just hours after her lawyer filed court documents about the case. Grinning into the camera, he said, ‘No, no, no, no, no. What they said today? Fake, fake news.
“They want to promote (themselves by using) my name. It’s normal. They want to be famous to say my name, but it is part of the job. I am a happy man and all good.”
The pair had met at Rain nightclub at the Palms, where Ronaldo was staying on holiday. Pictures show Ronaldo and Mayorga together at the club. In one intimate moment he clasps her hand while whispering into her ear.
According to documents filed at Clark County District Court on Friday, the footballer, who now plays for Juventus, invited Mayorga and a friend to his penthouse suite “to enjoy the view of the Las Vegas Strip”.
Mayorga claims she refused to get into his hot tub because she did not want to ruin her dress, then Ronaldo offered her some athletic shorts and a T-shirt and pointed her towards a bathroom where she could change.
The court documents state that as she was changing, Ronaldo entered the bathroom, exposed himself and asked her to perform a s*x act.
According to the papers, the striker then turned Mayorga on to her side, and that even though she was screaming “no, no, no!”, she was raped by the star.
The documents claim Ronaldo left the bedroom after the assault, “stating he was sorry, he was usually a gentleman”.
In an interview with Der Spiegel, Mayorga claimed Ronaldo said he was “99 per cent good a good guy” let down by the “1 per cent”.
The court documents filed on Thursday claim the footballer confirmed the pair had s*x but said it was consensual.
Mayorga alleges she reported the incident to Las Vegas police later that day and went to hospital where evidence of the alleged rape was documented and photographed.
She later hired a lawyer, and in 2010 negotiated a £287,000 out-of-court settlement. As part of that deal, she agreed never to go public with her allegations.
But the new claim seeks to overturn that settlement, which she says she only signed because she was “terrified of retaliation’ from Ronaldo and of ‘being publicly humiliated by being identified as a victim of s*xual assault”.
She says she has been left traumatised by the incident and has now gone public, in part because of the #MeToo movement in which women have shared their tales of abuse. She also claimed to have been left with PTSD and “major depression”.
Ronaldo claimed Mayorga’s physical injuries were caused by another person.
Mayorga is suing for damages which could run into millions of dollars.
