‘Who Else Did You Call?’: White California Gym Manager Texts Black Woman to Accuse Her of Stealing Ring from Studio, Forced to Eat His Words After Video Proves Him Wrong
A viral video showing a manager at a fitness studio in California accusing a Black woman of theft has drawn a wave of backlash online.
TikTok user @syduniversoul recently posted recordings of her dispute with the manager and franchise owner of a HOTWORX gym in Belmont, California, after she was accused of stealing a woman’s ring after a Pilates class.
According to @syduniversoul, the manager texted her claiming that surveillance footage caught her stealing the ring while she was in the studio’s locker room.
When she shows up to the studio with her friends, the manager plays the security video showing her near a cubby in the locker room where the gym member reportedly kept her ring and states that she was the only other person recorded standing near that cubby on the day the ring went missing.
“I’m trying to get this lady’s ring, that’s all,” says the manager as an explanation for his actions.
“Why did you go back in?” he asks as they view the video footage together.
“Who else did you call about this ring?” he’s asked. The manager further explained that he looked through an entire day of footage until the lady who allegedly lost her ring walked out and found that was the only time anyone got next to the cubby.
The employee then accuses her of sneaking the ring out of the cubby and putting it in her leggings, zooming in on wrinkles in her pants that he called a “bulge” where he presumed the ring was concealed.
However, at no point does the security footage show @syduniversoul taking a ring.
“You’re digging too deep into something that’s not there,” @syduniversoul tells the manager.
“I’ve looked at all the videos and this is the only explanation. But if you’re saying you didn’t take it, you didn’t take it,” the manager states.
“I want to see the bulge,” says the woman’s companion.
She then chastises the manager for his discriminatory conduct and for believing she stole someone else’s belongings without evidence.
“I did not think that. It’s what the footage shows,” the manager insists.
“Yes, you did think that. Because the footage does not show that, it does not show me stealing a ring,” @syduniversoul responds.
“It does not show the ring itself,” the manager points out.
“No, it does not show me stealing any ring,” she clarifies.
The manager was also questioned about the process he employed to track down the ring such as speaking with other people in the studio the day it went missing and checking the footage to confirm the ring’s location before it disappeared.
At that point, @syduniversoul requests to speak to the franchise owner, the manager’s father.
When the owner arrives, he looks at the footage and confirms that it doesn’t show her stealing.
“That’s it?,” asks the owner with his mouth agape. “You can’t tell anything from that,” he says turning to his son about the footage.
“No,” his son states.
“So you can’t accuse anybody for that,” the owner replies. “I think you owe them an apology.”
“I apologized like 20 times, they say it’s not enough,” his son says.
“At this point, does an apology make any difference after all the stress that this has caused?” @syduniversoul asks.
The videos have garnered more than 2 million views, with thousands of viewers rallying behind @syduniversoul, who accused the manager of racial profiling.
“Yea accusing someone without proof is wild,” one TikTok user wrote.
“An apology doesn’t automatically excuse one’s behavior,” someone else said.
“This is disgraceful, I am so sorry this happened,” another commenter added.