Clive Rose/Getty Images(RIO DE JANEIRO) — Embattled American Olympian swimmer Ryan Lochte said in a new interview that his “mistake was over-exaggerating” the story about being held up at gunpoint in Rio de Janeiro. but he stopped short of admitting lying.
“I just over-exaggerate part of it, the very first part, I was very intoxicated,” he told Brazil’s main broadcaster Globo. “I was a a little frightened, having a gun pointed to you.
“My mistake was over-exaggerating what really happened,” he said.
When he was asked whether he thought he was lying, he said: “I wasn’t lying to a certain extent. I over-exaggerated what was happened.”
Lochte claimed during the games that he and three other swimmers were held up at gunpoint after leaving a party and one of the claims he made was that a gun was cocked and pointed at his forehead.
He has since back-pedaled on his story, telling NBC News’ Matt Lauer in a clip posted online that although a gun was drawn during the incident, it was not pointed at his head.
“That didn’t happen,” he said. “The gun was drawn but not at my forehead.”
Police said Lochte’s story was a fabrication and that the Olympians were not robbed and were not victims. Rather, they alleged that the Olympians vandalized a bathroom at a gas station and were confronted by armed security guards.
In the interview with Lauer, Lochte, who returned home to Charlotte, North Carolina, appeared to concede that he knew that the guards were demanding payment for the damage done, not robbing them.
“Yeah, so then we had to give the money,” he told Lauer. But he also said he “couldn’t answer” whether the men were being robbed.
Lochte, who said he “had too much to drink” that night, maintained that he and the other athletes were frightened because a gun was involved.
Police in Rio de Janeiro recommended that Lochte and his teammate James Feigen be charged with false reporting. Feigen donated approximately $11,000 to charity to avoid prosecution.
Lochte’s two other teammates, Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz, returned home after giving statements to police and allege that Lochte pulled a poster off the gas station wall, sparking a confrontation with armed guards.
In a previous statement, Lochte has apologized for his behavior in a statement and said that he was traumatized by being out in a foreign country with a language barrier and having a stranger point a gun at him and demand money.
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