Michelle Obama Makes Ray Rice Assault Joke During Vine Video Shoot
First Lady Michelle Obama went viral on Tuesday after creating a silly Vine video with a turnip. But White House staffers who helped produce the popular video are now saying one of her outtakes â one that was destroyed moments after it was made â involved Obama making an offensive domestic abuse joke involving football player Ray Rice. The staffers, one of whom is a senior aide to the First Lady, claim Michelle Obama made âabout a dozenâ Vine videos, before deciding the âturnip, for what?â video was the best. The eleventh video she made featured the First Lady asking âRice, right?â before throwing a bunch of rice at the camera. But in the twelfth and final video they made, Obama held up a beet in one hand, andÂ aÂ clearÂ plastic bag of rice in the other, and said âMake the connection? Ouch, bad pun,â before laughing and asking for the camera to be cut. Obamaâs âconnectionâ was a reference to former Baltimore Ravens football player Ray Rice, who was recently caught in a viralÂ  video from February of this year beating his fiancÃ©, Janay Palmer, in an elevator in an Atlantic City casino. Palmer was knocked unconscious, after which Rice is apparently seen attempting to drag her out of the elevator. Both Rice and Palmer were arrested that evening for the altercation. âIt had been a long day, andÂ [First Lady Obama]Â was just blowing off some steam,â says the senior aide. âIt was just a silly joke, but weÂ all knew it was bad. Only a few people were laughing. Everyone else was pretty upset about it, myself included. Domestic abuse is no laughing matter, and just because the video was erased doesnât mean people shouldnât know about it.â Another employee was equally distraught. âI know she was kidding around, but who makes jokes about that? About a man physically assaulting his wife? And then she suddenly stops laughing, and itâs like, `hey, letâs erase that, we donât want anyone seeing that.â No one should have to see it, but no one should make that joke in the first place.â One White House staffer attempted to copy the video to a USB drive and stick it in her purse, but says âThe Secret Service confiscated it before I could reach the press pen. They stopped me and asked me if they could search my purse. The Secret Service has never once been suspicious of me, not before that. It was like adding insult to injury.â The White House has refused to comment onÂ the First LadyâsÂ joke, after asking repeatedly if we had obtained a copy of the video.