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| FLOYD MAYWEATHER JR. AND JOSIE HARRIS |
Harris has refused to detail the attack until now, choosing instead to relocate with the three children she shares with Mayweather to Valencia, Calif.
However, after a scene in Showtime's "30 Days In May" – an hour-long documentary used to promote Mayweather's May 4 bout against Robert Guerrero – attempted to rationalize Mayweather's domestic violence conviction, Harris decided to speak out.
In an exclusive interview at her home with Yahoo! Sports, Harris first sought to answer the messages put forward by the documentary:
That she, and her children, had lied.
That Mayweather's incarceration was wrong.
And that the beating was either falsified, embellished, or somehow deserved.
What transpired over the course of an extraordinary three-hour conversation was an intriguing look into the complex mindset of one of sports' most divisive characters.
"Did he beat me to a pulp?" said Josie Harris, sitting in her living room in a development in Valencia. "No, but I had bruises on my body and contusions and [a] concussion because the hits were to the back of my head. I believe it was planned to do that … because the bruises don't show …"
Her voice trails off as she produces a doctor's report describing the injuries following her visit to Southern Hills Hospital in the immediate aftermath of the attack.
Throughout the documentary, Mayweather called the charges "over-exaggerated" and "trumped up," while his team of handlers insisted there was no violence and no physical harm inflicted.
"This judicial system is really messed up," said Mayweather's current partner, Shantel "Miss" Jackson, in the documentary. "How can someone who really didn't do anything have to suffer a consequence for something of this magnitude? It really does anger me, because how can a lie get so far?"
The doctor's report tells a different story, of bruising and contusions.
So does Harris' next document, a handwritten statement then 11-year-old Koraun Mayweather gave to police. It was Koraun who, according to his written statement to police, ran for help when he "saw my Dad hit[t]ing" and "kicking my Mom."
Yahoo! Sports reviewed copies of the doctor's report and Koraun's written statements to police. Harris declined to make the copies public. According to her representative, she did not want to distract Mayweather so close to a fight.
The altercation happened when Mayweather returned to Harris' property at 5 a.m. on September 9. Police had already been summoned following a verbal dispute hours earlier, but Mayweather came back. Harris says she was asleep on the living room couch when she woke up to Mayweather, holding her cell phone, yelling at her about text messages from NBA guard C.J. Watson.
Mayweather and Harris were no longer together; the boxer had by then installed Jackson in his home and as his main love interest. But, according to Harris, it was not acceptable to Mayweather for her to see other men while living in a house he owned.
"Are you having sex with C.J.?" Mayweather yelled at Harris, according to the arrest report.
"Yes, that is who I am seeing now," she replied.
Mayweather then grabbed her by the hair and punched her in the back of the head "with a closed fist several times," according to the report. He then pulled her off the couch by her hair and twisted her left arm.
Nowadays, with the marketing genius of the "Money" phenomenon fully entrenched, flashing the cash and building a vast collection of shiny toys are extensions of the image and seemingly part of the man. His ever-increasing fight purses have also been a means to facilitate his love for a bet, with former business partner Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson telling of $250,000 wagers on the halftime scores of NFL games.
Harris has stories that trump that, like when she went to the M Casino to drop off a bag containing $700,000 in cash to settle one of Mayweather's bets. For a woman whose mother suffered from gambling addiction, it was mental torture.
"Floyd bets very risky, high amounts," Harris says, "and I see the same symptoms with him as I would see in my mother when they would lose the bet – mad, upset, taking larger risks to get the money back."
The gambling and the generosity are part of why some fear for Mayweather's future once the bright lights fade and retirement beckons. Seeing him settle into quiet suburban life is even harder to imagine than him getting beaten in the ring.
The example of Mike Tyson hangs over every successful athlete, proof that any amount of wealth can be squandered by fiscal foolery.
Harris hasn't seen "30 Days in May", but has heard plenty about it, her phone blowing up with texts and calls within moments of the first screening. As we chat, she enjoys hearing of a bizarre scene filmed immediately before Mayweather was driven to jail, where he held out a wad of cash and Jackson grasped it a little too eagerly, and Mayweather's parting final words were orders of where to store his Benz rather than any declaration of love.Harris is more amused to hear of footage of his Atlanta hotel after-party with a bevy of naked strippers than the general theme of the documentary that sought to minimize his apparent guilt.
"The story they are not telling is they are saying this in front of the kids that he did it in front of," Harris said. "You are calling your son a liar. You are calling your daughter a liar. You are calling your eldest son a liar."
Talking about it riles Harris, but her long-standing feelings for Mayweather are never far beneath the surface. She can't accept what he did, but neither will she forget the long hours with him training in a stinking gym in the Vegas "ghetto" soon after he moved out from Michigan, accompanied only by uncle Roger and a couple of friends.
And she recalls when he would go out on late-night training runs and she would rollerblade behind. Or later, when she would drive with the kids, going so slowly that passing drivers honked in frustration.
"It is a scary thought," Harris says. "Vegas – not a good place for him. Every outskirt is only 15-20 minutes from The Strip, if not a casino right there he can run to."
Mayweather's relationship with money is part of his paradox. He covets it, prioritizes it in his career decisions, yet clearly does not have much respect for what he earns.
When Mayweather wooed Harris back in 2006, he bought her a $500,000, 25-carat diamond ring. After the attack in 2010, she sold it to finance her new life in California and start a business selling Nappiesaks, a baby shower gift.
He buys Jackson handbags by Birkin and diamonds worth a decade's salary to many. Associates are rewarded with cars, watches, designer clothes, but easy money inevitably brings nefarious interest.
"He has told me people have stolen from him, his house was robbed and they thought it was an inside job," Harris says. "The people who are just leeching on … I didn't like that. I wanted Floyd to run his business like a company.
"You [should] clock in and clock out and get a salary, not, 'I'm going to buy you a Rolex or a car.' Is it a charity? A very lucky-ass charity. They are getting an extreme donation.
"Floyd will give someone the benefit of the doubt, but as soon as he sees disloyalty or sneakiness, they are out, completely cut off," she continues. "I have seen where if he would spot them a Rolex he wants it back."
Fame draws attention, but nothing serves as a people-magnet quite like money, especially a man loose with it.
Mayweather's publicist fired off a toxic letter of disgust when his entourage was described as the equivalent to that of a military dictator.
But the number of people around Mayweather is extraordinary, and few go unrewarded.
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