In an interview with The Today Show’s Matt Lauer, Olympic champion Michael Phelps speaks out about the now infamous photo of him smoking marijuana from a bong.

“It was– really, you know, the people I hurt, you know, is my family, clearly. My friends,” he says. “The close people around me. And most importantly, the fans. And– and, you know, I realize that that hurt a lot of people.”

While the 23-year-old admits that what he did was “bad judgement” and “a mistake,” he insists he and his friends were just celebrating: “I mean, we were just celebrating, honestly. And– you know, there was probably two or three people there I didn’t know. It was a very small group. Six or seven people probably total in the whole house. Like nothing major. You know, not like a giant college house party. It was nothing like that. It was just a small group and we were just sitting around and celebrating.”