Serena Williams implies reporter is at fault after quotes suggesting Steubenville, Ohio rape victim was to blame

Serena Williams took to her website for damage control after excerpts from a forthcoming Rolling Stone interview appeared to assign blame to the 16-year-old Steubenville rape victim for being drunk.

Serena Williams took to her website for damage control after excerpts from a forthcoming Rolling Stone interview appeared to assign blame to the 16-year-old Steubenville rape victim for being drunk.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/serena-retreats-faulting-steubenville-rape-victim-article-1.1376851#ixzz2WgWa6MA5

shed tennis star Serena Williams claimed Wednesday that a Rolling S

tone reporter put the hateful words about the Steubenville, Ohio, rape victim into her mouth.

“What was written — what I supposedly said — is insensitive and hurtful,” Williams said in a statement posted on her website. “I by no means would say or insinuate that she was at all to blame.”

Williams said she is now “reaching out to the girl’s family to let her know that I am deeply sorry for what was written in the Rolling Stone article.”

The top-ranked female tennis player in the world was forced to do damage control after she was quoted saying the 16-year-old “shouldn’t have put herself in that position” in excerpts from an upcoming article by Stephen Rodrick that were published by Deadspin.

Williams, on her site, insisted, “what happened in Steubenville was a real shock for me.”

“I was deeply saddened,” she wrote. “For someone to be raped, and at only sixteen, is such a horrible tragedy! For both families involved – that of the rape victim and of the accused.”