Venice Beach, CA — Venice Beach resident Frank Rizzo was hospitalized by former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey after reportedly telling her to smile.
“I walked past this lady eating a salad outside a cafe near the beach and she looked so sad,” Rizzo said from his bed, “I thought, ‘such beauty, how much prettier she would look if she smiled!’ So I encouraged her to smile. After that things got weird. I don’t remember much,” he said, nervously rubbing his neck brace.
Witnesses gave conflicting accounts of the event.
“[Ronda] was just sitting there eating and this guy walked up and told her to smile,” said witness Gina Tate. “She tried to ignore him; it looked like she was really bothered by something, but he wouldn’t leave her alone. He kept asking her why she was sad and telling her how pretty she was. It sounded like he thought she was a doll put there for him to enjoy looking at. At some point she seemed to snap and got him in a headlock and he stopped moving.”
However Frank’s brother, Joe Rizzo, describes things differently.
“Frank was just trying to be friendly. He does that a lot with women. This lady, she looked down, so he told her to smile. What’s the matter with that? She just sat there ignoring him and then attacked him for no reason!”
When asked if his brother ever told men to smile, Joe looked quizically, shook his head in confusion, and walked away.
Rousey released a brief statement describing the incident as regrettable.
“I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did. I should have sat there wilting under the unrelenting misogyny of being told to pretend to be happy because a random man wandering past thought it would be more attractive to him if I smiled. It’s only fair that I tailor my emotions and how I express them in a way that considers the feelings of all men who may want to think of me later while they jerk off in the shower. I apologize for pretending to be a full-fledged human being.”
Rizzo has said he will accept Rousey’s apology.
