In late November in a pair of viral tweets, British “Hamilton” star Giles Terera claimed he and a group of eight black actors were refused entry to a London bar due to their race. He said a group of white people behind them were allowed in without incident.
“I just took a group of 8 Black actors who i’m directing in a play about American blues musicians to Aint Nothin But The Blues bar in soho. We were racially profiled and refused entry as 10 white punters were allowed in past us unchecked. WTF,” he tweeted.
“This group of talented, and hard working actors was left devastated, confused and upset while the manager said ‘I dont care who you are or what you are.’ That this happens anywhere is a fucking disgrace, the fact it happens at venue which also exploits Blues music is sick,” he continued.
The “Ain’t Nothin’ But” Blues Bar, where the incident was alleged to have happened, responded to Terera’s claim in a Facebook post, accusing the actor of pulling “the ‘race’ card”:
To everyone who has been reading unfair tweets about the Bar yesterday. It is a shame people can just put these things up without having the facts correct.
They were id’d because they looked young and it was found some of the group did not have id. Therefore they could not be served. We do this everyday to anyone who appears young.It is a shame they then have to try and use the ‘race’ card to intimidate the staff.
Just because the next group happened to be white, they were a different age group, so were served.
We now have an unfair reputation which we cannot properly respond to.
We have regular customers, and staff, who are black. It makes no difference to us what colour people are.
Terera eventually deleted his tweets, but not before creating a backlash against the bar. Now, the bar appears to be preparing possible legal action against Terera, who starred as Aaron Burr in the London production of “Hamilton.” The Post Millennial reported that the bar “may be taking legal action against Mr. Terera.”
When the outlet reached out to the bar’s owner, Kevin Hillier, he declined to comment but said the matter was “with our lawyers.”
While the incident may have been a misunderstanding, it does follow a long line of celebrities using their platform to claim they were the victims of hate crimes, the most famous of whom was “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett, who not only claimed he was the victim of a hate crime, but went so far as to stage the fake crime. Smollett claimed two white men wearing “Make America Great Again” hats through bleach on him and beat him up while screaming homophobic and racial slurs. It turned out Smollett likely paid two brothers from Nigeria to help him stage the attack in an attempt to get a salary increase on “Empire.” The charges against Smollett were dropped, leading to an intense backlash against the prosecutor who dropped them.