Over Thanksgiving weekend, Naya Rivera was charged with domestic battery after an incident in which she reportedly struck her husband, Ryan Dorsey, on the head and lip.
While that’s troubling for the couple and their child, it’s also been disturbing to fans of Naya and of the couple, for obvious reasons.
Finally, Ryan Dorsey is making a statement.
So, at about 9:30 in the evening on Saturday night, Naya Rivera and her husband, Ryan Dorsey, were taking their two-year-old son, Josey, out for a walk.
Reportedly, they got into some sort of argument about Josey — which you usually shouldn’t do in front of your kid to begin with.
It was then that Naya allegedly struck her husband, on the head and on his lip. Again, this was apparently in front of their child.
We don’t know the extent of the attack, but Ryan apparently presented cell phone video of it to police, and they could see evidence of it on his face.
Naya was charged a little after midnight with domestic battery.
This was a crushing disappointment to many of her fans — a number of whom immediately stopped counting themselves as such. Domestic battery is no laughing matter.
(Even though Naya’s former fiance Big Sean trolled her about it on Twitter, which was opportunistic and arguably not entirely tasteful)
We later learned that none of Ryan Dorsey’s injuries were sufficient for him to require medical attention, and that apparently alcohol was involved (though that’s not an excuse).
But the world has wanted to hear what the couple has to say about what happened.
Ryan is speaking out first.
Taking to Twitter, Ryan Dorsey shared a heartfelt message that must have been challenging to compose:
“This is a difficult time for everyone in the family especially for Naya and I.”
That should read Naya and me, but it’s Twitter and we don’t think that his big focus was on grammar.
“This isn’t some reality show, this is our life.”
Sometimes, you just need to state the obvious.
“I ask that everyone especially ‘the media’ respect our privacy and treat us/this situation how you would want a loved one to be treated.”
(That’s going to mean different things to different people; plenty of folks would want 100% scrutiny on a couple where one partner hit the other, especially in front of their child)
Ryan Dorsey has some suggestions for how he imagines that people would want their loved ones to be treated:
“Perhaps with kindness, respect, without judgment, and as negative a situation this is, with positivity and love.”
He then signs it:
“Thanks, RD.”
Normally, we’d be 100% on board with his request for privacy.
First of all, he’s the victim in this situation.
Second of all, there’s a line where even public figures have a right to privacy. Particularly where things concern their children and their home life.
But when there’s an alleged crime involved — particularly one as serious as domestic battery.
Right now, we don’t know if Ryan is going to try to work things out or if their divorce that was called off is back on.
That post might indicate that they’re going to attempt to stay together, but they may still be deciding.
It might be easy for some to look at this couple and say “well, he’s not really injured, so how bad can it be?”
Partner abuse inflicted by women upon men is real and it’s serious.
While it’s true that society often makes it difficult for a woman to escape from abuse, a lot of those same social pressures make men ashamed to report being abused by a woman.
Now, maybe there’s a lot that we don’t know about their situation, but some find it troubling that Ryan Dorsey is asking people to back off when he could be bringing more attention to this issue.
We would counter that he is the alleged victim and, again, we don’t know as much about this situation as he does.
We should let the story unfold, okay?
