Richie Incognito Tells His Side During Interview with FOX Sports

During an interview that aired on the FOX NFL Sunday pregame show, Miami Dolphins guard Richie Incognito told his side of the Jonathan Martin bullying story to Jay Glazer. Incognito insisted to Glazer that all of his actions and words toward Martin were done "out of love."

Here's a full transcript of the interview (via FOX Sports): 

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Incognito: You can ask anybody in the Miami Dolphins locker room who had Jon Martin’s back the absolute most. And they will undoubtedly tell you, me.

Incognito: Jon never showed signs that football was getting to him, um, the locker room was getting to him.

Glazer: You’re saying you don’t know what led to this. Your teammates are saying, 'We don’t know.' His side has clearly said, 'We do know.' OK, and there’s bullying involved. There was a voice message left. I’m going to read it to you. You did leave this voice message?

Incognito: Yes, I did leave this voice message.

Glazer: And it’s, 'Hey, what’s up, you half N-word piece of blank. I saw you on Twitter, you been training 10 weeks. Want to blank in your blank mouth. I’m going to slap your blank mouth. Going to slap your real mother across the face. (Laughter) You’re still a rookie. I’ll kill you.' You hear that, going back to that now, do you look at that and say, 'I left that for Jonathan Martin?'

Incognito: When I see that voicemail, when I see those words come up across the screen, I’m embarrassed by it. I’m embarrassed by my actions. But what I want people to know is, the way Jonathan and the rest of the offensive line and how our teammates, how we communicate, it’s vulgar. It’s, it’s not right. When the words are put in the context, I understand why a lot of eyebrows get raised, but people don’t know how Jon and I communicate to one another.

Glazer: But there’s one thing of saying that, another thing with a white man using the N-word. How do you tell America, how do you expect anybody in America to believe you’re not a racist?

Incognito: I'm not a racist. And to judge me by that one word is wrong. In no way, shape or form is it ever acceptable for me to use that word, even if it’s friend to friend on a voicemail. I regret that.

Glazer: How much in today’s locker room is it thrown around by African Americans and white players?

Glazer: Right, wrong, or indifferent, because of all this, you've become the face of bullying in America. Someone thinks of a bully, they think of Richie Incognito.

Incognito: This isn't an issue about bullying. This is an issue of mine and Jon's relationship where I've taken stuff too far and I didn't know it was hurting him.

Glazer: Did Jonathan Martin overreact? Or was Jonathan hurting that much?

Incognito: I can’t sit here and tell you who overreacted, who did what. I can just sit here and be accountable for my actions. And my actions were coming from a place of love. No matter how bad and how vulgar it sounds, that’s how we communicate, that’s how our friendship was, and those are the facts, and that’s what I’m accountable for.

Glazer: You're telling me there wasn't any signs going into that?

Incognito: As the leader, as his best friend on the team, that's what has me miffed — how I missed this. I never saw it. I never saw it coming.

Glazer: There’s so many subplots in this. How much has come out, where you looked at it and said ... 'That’s not even close'?

Glazer: You obviously have had a very checkered history. From way back in college all the way up to recently with last year with the incident at the golf course. You’re sitting up here and saying, 'Hey, I’m a good guy.' It’s difficult for us, as America, to grasp that when all they see are the episodes.

Incognito: Right, no question. And if you go by just all the knucklehead stuff I’ve pulled in the past, done in my past, you’re sitting in your home and you’re thinking, 'This guy is a loose cannon, this guy is a terrible person, this guy is a racist.' When that couldn’t be farther from the truth. If I was a racist and I was bullying Jon Martin, when the press went in there and asked them questions, that locker room would have said, 'Listen, we saw this, we saw that.' I’m proud of my guys for having my back and telling the truth. But the fact of the matter is when Jon left the team on Monday, we played a game on Thursday. I spoke with Jon on Friday.

Glazer: You spoke with him?

Incognito: I texted with him, I text messaged, I spoke with him through text message. And he texted me and said, 'I don’t blame you guys. I blame some stuff in the locker room. I blame the culture. I blame what was going on around me.' And when all this stuff got going and swirling, bullying got attached to it and my name got attached to it. I just texted him as a friend and was like, 'What’s up with this, man?' He said, 'It's not coming from me. I haven’t said anything to anybody.' And I’m like, 'OK.'

Glazer: Would these be texts you would be willing to share?

Incognito: No question. I'll give you, after this interview, I’ll give you my phone. And we’ll walk through all these texts, and I will show you the framework of a friendship.

Glazer: If Jonathan Martin was sitting right here next to you, what would you say to him?

Incognito: I think, honestly, I think I’d give him a big hug right now because we’ve been through so much and I’d just be like, 'Dude, what’s going on? Why didn’t you come to me?' If he were to say, 'Listen, you took it way too far. You hurt me.' ... You know, I would just apologize and explain to him exactly what I explained to you, and I’d apologize to his family. They took it as malicious. I never meant it that way.

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