IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

Pistorius: 'I Wasn't Kind to Her Like I Should Have Been'

Olympian admits to being "jealous" after Reeva Steenkamp spoke to a man at a friend's party.
Get more newsLiveon

Oscar Pistorius' voice broke with emotion Tuesday as he read out text messages sent by his slain girlfriend, including one in which she admitted being "scared" of the Olympian.

The double-amputee sprinter told his murder trial that one of the WhatsApp messages had arrived on “a bad day in our relationship.”

He explained that one argument occurred when model and law graduate Reeva Steenkamp talked to another man at an event and did not introduce him to Pistorius.

“I was a bit upset, I felt neglected,” Pistorius said. “I was being sensitive … insecure or jealous… I wasn’t kind to her like I should have been.”

Steenkamp had sent the athlete a long, heartfelt message the day after the couple argued at a friend’s engagement party, the court head.

“Yesterday wasn’t nice for either of us,” Steenkamp wrote in the January 2013 message, which was sent a month before she was shot dead in the athlete’s bathroom.

“I was not flirting with anyone,” she added. “You get upset if I mention a story with a one-time boyfriend. You do everything to throw tantrums in front of people. You have been upset with me for two days now. I’m so upset.”

She told the athlete that she had planned to tell him she loved him “even when I was scared out of my mind.”

“I’m scared of you sometimes and how you snap at me,” she told Pistorius. “You make me happy 90 per cent of the time and I think we are amazing together,” she wrote. "I’m not some other b****.”

Image: Reeva Steenkamp
Reeva Steenkamp was shot at Olympian Oscar Pistorius' home on Feb. 14, 2013. The sprinter denies premeditated murder.Mike Holmes / Gallo via Getty Images, file

In an earlier argument that followed her return from an overseas trip, Steenkamp told Pistorius: "I wasn't a stripper or a ho."

Pistorius is accused of premeditated murder after fatally shooting Steenkamp on Feb. 14, 2013. The sprinter maintains he mistook her for an intruder.

The trial continues.

- Alastair Jamieson