Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick famously lied to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell about his involvement with dogfighting. Lying was a habit for him back then, when he was with the Atlanta Falcons.
"I lied to my mom," Vick told CNN's Piers Morgan on Tuesday. "She really didn't know what was going on. She I think had heard just from people word of mouth that I was engaging in illegal activity but she couldn't put a finger on it and nobody else knew.
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"I told her the truth the day I got arraigned. I think my mom cried for four or five days straight, and everybody else around me who loved me and cared about me, because they just didn't think it would go that far -- they didn't think I would end up going to prison. It was a dramatic change for everybody's life."
Vick continues to make the media rounds to promote his new book, "Finally Free," and insisted that he "loves dogs," but "the day I saw that [first] dogfight, something changed. I didn't know dogs could react the way they did."
"I know it may seem contradictory but that's just the person that I was," Vick said. "On one hand, I love dogs, on the other hand I was in love with the competition behind it. For some reason I couldn't really see the meaning behind it.
"You can only go on what you see at such a young age, and I just fell into that trap and started believing what I wanted to believe," Vick said. "There was never a point at which someone tried to correct me and tell me it was wrong."
Vick will appear on NFL Network's "Total Access" on Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET to discuss the book and the Eagles' prospects for the 2012 NFL season.