Matt Riddle has released a video denying allegations against him as part of the #SpeakingOut movement. The Smackdown Superstar admits he had an affair with his accuser but is denying all allegations of sexual misconduct.
“I’m going to make this quick. I have never in my entire life sexually assaulted a man, woman, or anybody,” Riddle begins the video.
He then addressed his accuser directly.
“Candy Cartwright, I never sexually assaulted you. The story about that van trip and the driver being asleep and me forcing you to do stuff and hop on whatever is a complete lie. It’s a fabricated story because you’re still mad. You know why you’re mad? Because yes, you’re right, we had an affair, you have plenty of evidence of that. You know what? I never denied it because it happened. Do I want to talk about it? Do I really want to share about it? No, it’s embarrassing because I feel like real piece of crap cheating on my wife and doing that and now having to talk about it publicly but I have to.”
Riddle continued to talk about how he began to feel depressed with all the lying and cheating on his partner.
“It’s not something cool, I didn’t want to brag about it. I tried to end it, i told my wife about you and us. I blocked you, I blocked your social media. You then started using messaging apps, you kept coming.”
Riddle then continued to talk about all the ways the person continued to message him. He said she has been showing up to hotels and harassing his friends as well.
“At the end of the day, I’m not perfect. We did have an affair and I’m not happy about that. But, I never sexually abused anybody, I never sexually assaulted anybody. And when I wanted to get out of this relationship, out of this situation, she said no and kept pursuing me and harassing me and stocking me. And when she didn’t get her way, she used the #SpeakingOut movement to try and ruin my career. Completely unacceptable.”
