Fans of Ronda Rousey have a pervy ex-boyfriend to thank for the MMA superstar’s famous nude photo spread in ESPN The Magazine.
The undefeated UFC women’s bantamweight champion claims a former flame secretly took naked pictures of her without her consent, something she only discovered while using his computer to promote a 2012 fight on social media. The boyfriend, identified as “Snappers McCreepy” by Rousey in an interview with Sirius XM’s Opie Radio, allegedly filled his hard drive (and download preview) with photos of “ass” – her’s, to be exact.
“It looked like it was amateurly taken,” she said, adding that she “had to look” in order to confirm what exactly she had stumbled upon. “It was all me,” Rousey said.“You know when you’re just comfortably naked around somebody… I just thought that he was on his phone texting people.”
That was enough for Rousey to take decisive action – first by deleting her boyfriend’s hard drive, and then beating him to the punch before a possible nude photo leak by appearing naked in the 2012 Body Issue of ESPN The Magazine.“If there’s naked pictures out there, I’m going to go take naked pictures myself and I’m going to put it out there on my terms.”
The memorable spread helped raise Rousey’s profile to new levels, and she’s become even more famous since as the face of her sport with a dominating 11-0 record and no real challengers to threaten her reign as the undisputed queen of MMA.
She’s also written a new book, My Fight/Your Fight, and just landed another high-profile magazine cover – fully clothed this time – the May 18th Sports Illustrated.