Still his No. 1 fan! Ryan Lochte’s girlfriend, Kayla Rae Reid, is staying by his side amid the athlete’s ongoing Rio controversy. The couple landed together at LAX in L.A. on Monday, August 22.
Lochte, 32, and the Playboy model were approached about the scandal while loading their suitcases into a car. “I will always support him no matter what,” Reid told a cameraperson, which was posted in a Daily Mail video.
Hours earlier, the Olympian gave an emotional interview to the Today show’s Matt Lauer in NYC. He apologized for fabricating the story that he was allegedly robbed at gunpoint while in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Instead, Brazilian officials concluded that he and his swimming teammates — Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger and James Feigen — vandalized a gas station and urinated on the property.
“I left details out, and that’s why I’m in this mess,” he said during the sit-down, which aired on NBC Saturday. “I overexaggerated that story.”
“The gun was drawn, but it wasn’t at my forehead. … I’m not making me being intoxicated, like, an excuse. I’m not doing that at all. It was my fault, and I shouldn’t have said that,” he continued. “It’s how you want to make it look like. Whether you call it a robbery, whether you call it extortion, or us paying just for the damages, like, we don’t know. All we know is that there was a gun pointed in our direction, and we were demanded to give the money … I’m just really sorry and I hope [the people of Rio] can accept my apology.”
Lochte’s problems are far from over. His sponsorships with Ralph Lauren, Airweave, Speedo and Gentle Hair Removal have all ended their relationships with him.
“I think they needed to take the right measurements for everything,” Lochte said of his former endorsers on Monday, via the DM.
When asked about his fans, he added: “I love them.”