It sounds like an excuse a young adult would make to justify why he got his ass beat so I really didn't even question it. I don't think many people did. Which is typically the worst kind of disinfo, one that distorts a lie just enough to be believable by most people.
Tangent but it's also interesting how absolutely little AI portraits actually do to be seen as "Believable." This doesn't really reform the dudes character cause he's still an asshole that got lots of people harmed and killed, but they still tried. Thank goodness for labelers, even imperfect ones