Limbaugh: Abused NFL wife felt fame was 'worth' injury -- 'How bad could it have been?'

Radio host Rush Limbaugh defended the National Football League's light punishment of Ravens running back Ray Rice, suggesting that knocking his then-girlfriend unconscious could not have been that bad if she later agreed to marry him.

The NFL came under fire recently after Rice was given a two-game suspension for assaulting his girlfriend in Atlantic City in February, and then dragging her unconscious body out of an elevator. Meanwhile, the league had doled out much stiffer punishments for anti-gay slurs, smoking marijuana and accepting free tattoos.

On his Tuesday radio show, Limbaugh tried to explain the logic behind the punishment by insinuating that the woman had decided that the attack -- which was caught on surveillance video -- was worth the money she would get by accepting Rice's marriage proposal.

"He hits the woman when she was his fiancé, so he gets a lawyer, and the advice was marry her?" Limbaugh opined. "You know, she's part of this equation. She just said yes?"

"She's fiancé, he decks her, then they get married. Well, how bad could it have been, she said yes to the proposal?" he asked. "Stop and think of this, he engages in domestic abuse when they're engaged. Presumably, she has already said yes. Then, the event happens in the elevator, and it's known. And lawyer says, 'Okay, Ray, you've got to get married. Limit the damage, you've got to get married now because the act of her going through with the marriage after you deck her will limit the impact of it.'"

Limbaugh admitted that "most women would run for the hills" after domestic violence.

"NFL player, big bucks, fame, it may be worth a hit to the jaw," he speculated, adding that wives of athletes could get hired to do reality TV shows and modeling jobs.

"So, it's its own gig," the conservative host concluded.

Listen to the audio below from the Rush Limbaugh Program, broadcast July 29, 2014.

(h/t: Media Matters)