Jon Jones’ first interview since testing positive for cocaine aired on Fox Sports, and you can watch the clip above.
“It was a nerve wracking day. I knew that I did something wrong. I knew the test would show that. I didn’t tell anyone. Not even my own coaches knew that I was possibly dirty for a drug test. I kept it very private,” Jones stated. “I knew that the test would come out positive. I knew there was nothing I could do about it. I was stressed out about it, but I thought I would just focus on what I could control and that was the fight.”
“I definitely don’t have an excuse. I’m not here to make excuses for what happened,” Jones said. “I did it, basically at a party. I think a coward would sit here and try to come up with this elaborate reason or to try to blame something, and I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to blame friends or blame pressure or stress. I’m not going to blame anything. But what I will say is that, I messed up. It wasn’t a mistake. I can’t call it a mistake necessarily, because I consciously did it.”
When asked about past cocaine use, Jones said he did it in college and only used again a month before the Cormier bout.
“I had done it before. Quite a few times in college, I experimented with it. But that’s really it. Mainly in college, it was something I dipped and dapped into a little bit. But it was never an issue.”
“Pretty much,” Jones said as he maintained that he only used in college and that one point he got caught. “First time I did it was college. I do not dab into cocaine. It’s not my thing at all. The night I did it, I was just, there’s no excuse. I really don’t know what came over me or what decide to make such a poor choice, but I did, and now I live with it.”
He also addressed his one-night in rehab.
“Me going to rehab was, I would say it was a collective decision between myself and some of my business partners. They thought it would be good. I told them right away, ‘Dude, I don’t have a drug problem, I just got caught.’ They said, ‘Jon, we don’t know if you have a drug problem or not. Listen, how about you go to rehab and let them decide how healthy you are.’
“So I went to a rehab facility and I did a 24-hour evaluation, where I spoke to three doctors for almost seven hours. We talked about drugs and the role they’ve played in my life and my upbringing. They came to the conclusion that I didn’t need in-patient treatment, so they put me in an out-patient house. I stayed there the next day with a bunch of different addicts. The counselor came to me at the house and he set me down and he said, ‘Jon, I really believe that you made a big mistake and that you don’t need to live here with us full time, but what I will do is continue to drug test you and to come by your house twice a week, or however often.”
When asked if he was going sue the Nevada State Athletic Commission, Jon said “at this point, I’m not going to comment whether I will take legal action or not”.
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