Ronda Rousey doesn’t just save her jabs for the cage.
The female MMA champion took some serious swings at swimming superstar Michael Phelps for his snobby behavior at the 2008 Beijing Olympics where Rousey competed for the United States in judo. Phelps was “kept separate” from his fellow Olympians at social functions while basketball stars like Kobe Bryant mixed and mingled like everyone else, Rousey said in a video on EsNewsReporting.com.
Rousey said when all the U.S. Olympians went on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” Phelps, who won eight golds and more medals than anyone else at those Games, was isolated from the group by his handlers.
“Michael Phelps had to be kept separate in the backstage area so he wouldn’t be harassed by the other Olympians,” Rousey said. “I don’t like being somebody’s teammate and being treated like their groupie. I didn’t even want to go out of my way and go say hi to that guy. Just get over yourself. All you do is swim. If someone slapped you every time you jump in the pool, I would have a little more respect. But I was a swimmer before I did this [expletive], so you can’t even tell me swimming is this, ‘Oh my God,’ because I’ve done it before.”
Rousey, who also competed at the Athens Olympics in 2004, won the bronze medal in Beijing. The 25-year-old is now the Strikeforce women’s welterweight champion and regarded as the top pound-for-pound female MMA fighter in the world. Rousey has been in the news lately for appearing in ESPN The Magazine’s “The Body Issue” and saying she wanted to “beat the crap” out of Kim Kardashian.
She didn’t quite go that far talking about Phelps, but said his behavior in Beijing “annoyed” her. When all the U.S. Olympians went out to a club, Phelps was again kept in a private section. Bryant, on the other hand, was “cool,” Rousey said.
“All these NBA players are a bigger deal than [Phelps] and they’re all hanging out with the rest of us,” Rousey said. “I was like, ‘Hello, we’re your teammates.’ We’re not a bunch of groupies. Come hang out with us. Who the hell are you?”