Deondre Francois’ dismissal from Florida State is getting messier by the hour.
A day after the quarterback’s removal from the Seminoles football team over accusations of domestic violence, the same Instagram account that made the accusations appeared remorsefully to walk back those claims.
Now, that apparent apology is being called into question by the accuser’s own family, who said her account had been hacked and the most recent post was a fake.
“The statement that was posted from my sister Diimelovee (HouseofDime) page was not her! She has been hacked,” the accuser’s sister wrote in an Instagram story late Monday.
The family then released a longer statement, also through the sister’s Instagram page.
“At this time we have been advised not to speak on this matter but we have been informed that my sisters instagram @HouseOfdimes has been hacked,” the statement read. “It is an unfortunate event but we are handling this as quickly as possible.”
The supposed apology post, which went up Monday afternoon and was quickly deleted, suggested Francois had never hit his ex-girlfriend and that she had intended only to scare him with her initial post Saturday, also ultimately deleted.
“I want to first start by apologizing to Deondre and his family for ultimately diminishing his character,” the apology read. “I should have never posted a video from our past situations that were already handled. … The sounds you hear in the video are me throwing things and hitting him. I should never have made it seem like he was hitting me.”
Hacked or not, the post reads as highly dubious from the start, denying events that are clearly heard on the audio of the video posted Saturday.
The most damning exchange from the original post comes when the woman says, “Stop hitting me in my f–king face,” and Francois responds by saying, “I don’t give a f–k. I’m going to hit you in your face every f–king time.”
To suggest now that Francois had never struck his ex-girlfriend would seem to fly in the face of everything the original video documents.
Francois, who was to be a redshirt senior for Florida State, reportedly entered his name in the NCAA transfer portal Monday, a sign he intends to try to catch on elsewhere.
Whether that can happen likely depends on how and when this murky-and-getting-murkier situation is cleared up. As of Tuesday morning, though, the possibility of clarity seemed remote at best.
