The“Family Feud” contestant who was convicted of his ex-wife’s murder after he trashed his marriage on the popular game show is still defending a tasteless joke that he made on the program about regretting saying “I do.”
Timothy Bliefnick, 40, addressed the infamous quip in his first interview since he was sentenced in August to life in prison for the gruesome murder of his wife Rebecca “Beck” Postle Bliefnick, whom he shot 14 times.
“It wasn’t said with any malice or bad intentions. It was supposed to be funny,” he told 48 Hours’ Erin Moriarty in an upcoming episode, which is set to air Saturday.
Bliefnick was still married to Rebecca Bliefnick when he appeared on a 2019 episode and was asked what the “biggest mistake you made at your wedding.” To host Steve Harvey’s shock, the then-contestant replied: “I do.”
“Steve Harvey looked at me, like: ‘Oh, you’re gonna be in trouble,’ and I even said that,” Bliefnick said in the clip.
“And I said: “Hey, it’s not me, I love my wife.’ And I mean, I looked right at the camera and said: ‘I love my wife,’ and looked at the camera and said, ‘Honey, I love you.'”
The couple split two years later, and four years later, the father-of-three broke into his estranged wife’s home and shot her over a dozen times while their children slept in their beds upstairs.
But Bliefnick maintains that the comment on the episode was not proof of premeditation.
“It was supposed to be humorous. It wasn’t supposed to be anything other than that,” he said.
At Bliefnick’s sentencing hearing in August, Judge Robert Adrian condemned the father-of-three, saying he had “researched this murder” and “planned” it.
“You practiced this murder,” the judge said. “You broke into her house, and you shot her one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 times.
“I don’t know how long it took you to do that, but some of those shots were fired while she was lying on the ground,” the judge continued. “And you did all of that while your children were upstairs at your house, lying snug in their beds.”
Bliefnick was convicted of first-degree murder in May.
The couple had married in 2009 and divorced in 2021, with his ex-wife telling her sister that she feared Bliefnick shortly before she was found dead.
“I am putting this in writing that I’m fearful he will somehow harm me, come after me, or will try to [do] something to me that takes me away from the kids or the kids away from me,” she texted her sister. “He already has lied multiple times to paint himself as a victim and me as the perpetrator when it is absolutely the other way around.”
Bliefnick’s episode of 48 Hours will air on CBS and Paramount+ on Saturday at 10 p.m.
