Video of Terrell Owens punching out an alleged heckler emerged on Sunday, showing the Hall of Fame wide receiver squaring up with the man in a CVS parking lot.
Three days later, the 48-year-old released a statement to the Associated Press claiming he was acting in self-defense, with the other man acting as an “aggressor” toward him and a fan he was talking to in the CVS.
After the man allegedly “made offensive gestures and threatening statements” toward the pair, Owens said he walked out of the store to try to de-escalate the situation, but the man followed, resulting in the video published by TMZ.
From the AP:
“The aggressor continued threatening the fan just as he did in the store,” Owens told the AP. “Once again, attempting to diffuse the ongoing situation, I placed myself between the fan and the aggressor. I made verbal demands asking the aggressor to stop his threatening behavior.”
Owens said the man “swung at me first” before he “felt obligated to prevent the aggressor from becoming more violent.”
The video begins with each man in the process of throwing hands, with Owens eventually dropping his opponent with a hard right. The other man gets up several seconds later, but no further blows are exchanged. After a minute or so of talking, Owens walks away.
TMZ reported that no police were called to the scene, and that Owens drove away once the situation calmed down. It’s unclear if he faces any potential legal repercussions. The other man has not yet been publicly identified.
Owens, who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2018, has not appeared in an NFL game since 2018, but has remained athletically active. He most recently competed in the upstart Fan Controlled Football League, and seemed as spry as ever, unfortunately for the heckler, in a video appearing to show him running the 40-yard dash in under 4.50 seconds.