Kelly Stafford, wife of Detroit Lions quarterback Matt Stafford, is apologizing for a social media rant in which she called Michigan a "dictatorship" amid new restrictions to stem the spread of Covid-19.
"I'm over living in a dictatorship that we call Michigan," the 31-year-old from Georgia said in an Instagram video Thursday morning. "If you're at risk, do not leave your house until there's a vaccine.
"But shutting down all these small businesses? Things that people have worked their life for? Shutting them down again is not the answer because they will not make it. So once we are able to leave our house, once this dictatorship decides to let us have some freedom, there will be nothing left.
"I do not like living in a place where they tell me what I can and cannot do," she added. "I live once."
Stafford followed the post with video of a meeting with her boxing instructor in which he wears a mask and she does not. The instructor is Black. African Americans are at greater risk of suffering severe complications from Covid-19.
The comments came a day after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer shut down indoor dining, casinos, group exercise classes and other activities in response to a second surge of Covid-19 cases that threatens to overrun hospitals.
Stafford previously came under fire for her opposition to NFL players kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice, but has since apologized for that too.
