As reported this week at Raw Story, the ad āincludes footage of Republican Senate hopeful Herschel Walkerās ex-wife graphically describing him choking her and threatening to kill her during their marriage.ā Walkerās commentary called the ad ādishonestā without questioning the authenticity of the footage.
Instead, Walker sought sympathy. Hereās his self-pitying explanation in the Wall Street Journal piece.
āThe ad is titled āThe Real Herschel Walker,ā but its producers are the ones hiding something: that I took accountability for my actions and got treatment, that she gave this interview because I asked her to, and that we did this and other interviews together. The ad makers took something designed to do good and turned it into something evil, which will harm innocent people.ā
Thereās much to question with the āI took accountability for my actions and got treatmentā part of Walkerās story. As with his 2008 memoir āBreaking Free: My Life with Dissociative Identity Disorder,ā Walker attempts to place in the past tense a mental disorder which ā assuming he has it ā is viewed as manageable but not curable by health authorities such as the Cleveland Clinic.
Thereās no evidence Walker has been cured, but thereās plenty of doubt that whatever challenges he had can now be placed conveniently in the rearview mirror. That was suggested by a May article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution headlined āHerschel Walkerās mental health battle raises questions about treatment.ā
As AJC.com reported, āWalkerās campaign refused to answer questions about his current treatment or whether he still has symptoms.ā
It also noted that, āWalkerās mental health story is complicated, interlaced with allegations of domestic violence and featuring a controversial therapist who has said a patientās choice of crayon color can reveal whether he or she is gay or even possessed by demons.ā
And there was this reporting in reference to Walkerās presumed multiple personalities, known as āalters.ā
āWalker said in (a 2008) ABC interview that he had his alters under control. But in 2012 a Texas woman filed a police report accusing him of threatening to āblow her head offā and then kill himself if she broke up with him. Myka Dean said she was Walkerās longtime girlfriend, according to a January 2012 police report. No charges were filed against Walker, who has denied the claims.ā
The report also cited pushback from an advocate for domestic-violence victims:
āJan Christianson, executive director of the Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence, called the allegations against Walker ādeeply troubling.ā
āMental illness does not excuse his behavior,ā she said. āYou have to take accountability for your actions. You canāt hide behind a diagnosis.ā
Walkerās past misconduct is quite consistent with a series of scandalous revelations ā hardly attributable to mental illness ā such as his having failed to acknowledge publicly his fatherhood of multiple children.
The Huffington Post reported in June that Walker āconfirmed that he actually has four children, following revelations that the critic of absentee fathers has a 10-year-old son with whom he reportedly has limited contact.
āIn addition to the 10-year-old, the aspiring Georgia senator has a 13-year-old son as well as an adult daughter who he had when he was around 20 years old, The Daily Beast first reported Thursday. He also has a 22-year-old son who he has previously publicly disclosed. This brings his total, publicly reported children to four.ā
That reporting noted the hypocrisy of Walker having done all that while calling out absent dads.
āIn a 2020 interview with conservative activist Charlie Kirk, Walker called fatherless homes a āmajor, major problemā in Black communities and described himself as acting ālike a fatherā to fatherless kids in the Georgia town where he grew up.ā
And, there was this: āThe Daily Beast reported that the mother of his 10-year-old son had to sue Walker after giving birth in order to secure a declaration of paternity and child support from the former NFL player.ā