The court battle between Mario Williams and his ex-girlfriend over a $785,000 engagement ring has reached the "Mario Williams had to hold a press conference to deny he considered committing suicide" stage.
Late last week, the lawyer for Erin Marzouki, Williams's ex-fiancée, released a series of text messages Williams allegedly had sent Marzouki back on Nov. 11, the day the Bills played a road game against the Patriots:
Among them:
• “I took 3 hydrocodones this morning and no one knows. I’m going to take 2 more on the plane and fade away.”
• “No money in the world should leave me with suicidal thoughts.” And: “I need to go back n my shell. There’s no telling what Ill do to myself at this point. I’m sry Ill disappear from now on.”
The messages had been deleted from Marzouki's phone, but just to show how ugly this has become, her lawyer told the Buffalo News a forensics expert was hired to retrieve them. Which, in turn, put Williams in the awkward position of having to explain the darkest contours of his relationship drama during a 10-minute press conference after yesterday's practice.
Williams admitted he sent the texts but said they were "blown out of proportion" and were taken "completely out of context":
Regarding suicidal thoughts, Williams said: “In my situation, I’m completely fine. I’ve never had any inclination of anything that even myself would notice.”
Never in moment of anger did you suggest you might kill yourself, he was asked? “In a moment of anger, I talk about everything, I tell you that,” he said. “And I don’t know who would say they don’t. So that answers your question.”
Asked again later on if he had suicidal thoughts, Williams said: “No, no, no. Like I said, in the heat of battle, in the heat of ups and downs, things like that, you just come to somebody who you think you can just vent to, and whatever comes out comes out.
“I think that’s just a way of venting out, but obviously that’s the wrong person to vent to,” Williams said of Marzouki. “It’s just something that I wouldn’t tell anybody else – as far as venting – than the person you love or whatnot at the time.”
Williams explained the hydrocodone—a pain medication—as something he had been prescribed for the wrist injury that plagued him for much of last season.
It was Williams who filed suit to get the 10.04-carat ring back from Marzouki. The suit says she broke things off in January and never had any intention of marrying him because she only wanted his money. Marzouki has filed a countersuit that says Williams frequently broke up with her and that he told her she could keep the ring when they finally split for good. The couple got engaged in February 2012, but they had been together for more than five years.
So where does this case go from here, with neither Williams nor Marzouki willing to blink first? Well, it depends.
Photo credit: Getty