Roger Mathews is addressing claims he abused ex-wife Jenni “JWoww” Farley during their four-year marriage, admitting that he “pushed her, that I can remember, three or four times in our entire relationship.”
In January of last year, during the thick of their very public divorce, the “Jersey Shore” star posted security camera footage from inside the former couple’s New Jersey home, showing the truck driver throwing Jenni to the ground. “You wanna get violent?” he was heard shouting at Jenni in the clip, before JWoww got up, threw something at him and yelled back, “F–k you!” Their two children — Meilani, now 5, and Greyson, now 3 — were heard screaming in the background.
“The public got to see the worst of the worst, basically, and things got ugly for a long time,” Roger admitted to friend and UFC fighter Frankie Edgar in a podcast taping that aired earlier this week.
“The night that that all happened, and I went home and my life kind of fell apart… December 14th, I went home at like midnight. Had a couple Johnnie Walkers, as I’m having right now. This shit better not be cursed!” Mathews explained. “Went home, and again, I don’t wanna get into detail, because if I get into detail and Jenni listens to this, which she probably will, then it becomes a he-said-she-said, and you kind of jump back into that hornet’s nest, and she’s gonna fire shots back.”
“Nobody wants to look like the bad guy,” he added. “People wanna look like the good guy. People wanna look like, I don’t wanna say the victim, but that’s what happens when you butt heads and ugliness comes out in a relationship.”
Roger admitted their two kids “did see some ugliness in our relationship, and it’s personality traits in Jenni and I that caused that. Neither one of us tap out and give in very easily. You both wanna win — even though that’s the wrong word — when you’re in an argument or a battle of the wills, if you will. And despite what was put out there or people wanna think…there was really not any violence in our relationship, despite what a lot of people might think.”
“Any time you put your hands on any human being, other than what you do in the ring, is wrong. And I would never defend ever doing that, and I certainly was guilty of pushing Jenni, but that was a video that was from years earlier that was saved and sort of — and again, this is what I don’t wanna do — but it wasn’t a one-sided street,” he claimed.
“I mean, I think that maybe one day, her and I can have a conversation and say, ‘Listen, we both could’ve done things much better.’ But it was not a violent household. I would not call it that,” he went on.
“It was just that what was put out there was — in my opinion — A. edited in a way that didn’t make me look very good, and B. was the absolute worst moments of my entire life and the worst moments of her entire life, and the security system captured it from years ago,” he continued to assert. “It wasn’t even… I don’t think any of that would’ve actually come out or been said or been highlighted if obviously emotions hadn’t run so high.”
“But you don’t know the whole story. You have no idea. You saw a very emotionally charged woman work very hard… Jenni’s good, man. She’s good at what she does. If you go to war with Jenni, hold the f–k on ’cause she’s good at war,” Mathews said of his ex. “And I’m responsible to some extent for picking a fight with her. She came at me with… F–k, I fired a couple rounds over the fence, and she dropped a f–king atomic bomb in the middle of my house! That’s what it felt like.”
Roger went on to say he feels Jenni used her “huge platform” to harm his reputation, saying “she used that platform for a great deal of leverage in the court of public opinion. And I’m sure if Jenni was sitting here, she’d say, ‘You did it, too.'”
“And for the record, I was never arrested or anything like that,” he added of that fateful Dec. 14 night. “No police charges were ever filed in anything criminal. None of that stuff ever went anywhere… I’ve worked diligently to become a better human and work more on the things I do before I do them.”
“I was so emotionally distraught. I lost like 20+ lbs, probably close to 25 lbs. I was so stressed and couldn’t eat. It wasn’t because I was like, ‘Oh, my God, my relationship is over and I’m divorced and how am I gonna deal and how am I gonna recoup?’ I was good when I knew I did everything that I could to save it. I thought I did everything I could do to save it, short of begging, which I would never beg. Asked to go to counseling and all those things, and she still wanted to get divorced, which is her right. I’m not knocking Jenni for that. People fall out of love. I was okay with it and accepted it, and I could’ve survived that.”
“It wasn’t until she used her platform to literally make me f–king Jeffrey Dahmer to the world, and I was this heinous, abusive, nine-year monster. Which, again, if you compare that to actual logistics and stats and no arrests, police were never at our house, never a bruise on her. Like, it doesn’t really add up, but she did what she did well because she was mad,” he claimed of his former spouse.
“There’s a lot of mis-truths and misbeliefs out there that I hit Jenni,” he said. “I’ve never hit Jenni in my life ever. I have pushed her, that I can remember, three or four times in our entire relationship. All wrong. We should’ve gone for help is what we should’ve done.”
TooFab has contacted reps for Farley seeking comment on Mathews’ claims.
Mathews said he is currently in weekly counseling and that he and Farley are in “a really good place now. Really good, really good. Maybe we were always destined to be friends. We’re in a good place, we’re co-parenting really well, we’re friends. We just talked today. We were texting back and forth, not in a reconciliation sort of way, not like we’re ever gonna get back together. That’s not gonna happen. Civil manner for our children, and that’s really the best you can hope for.”
He also spoke about his ex-wife’s current relationship with Zack Clayton Carpinello, who recently turned 25, saying he’s only ever had positive and respectful experiences with the professional wrestler. Roger also said he has no reason to believe Zack’s been anything but great with their kids.
“It’s crazy to think — and I don’t mean this disrespectfully, I’m not talking shit about Zack, I have no reason to — legitimately, he could be my child,” Mathews noted. “Legitimately. I’m old enough! I’m 44. I think he’s 23 or 24. I would’ve been 20. He could be my kid.”
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