Kehlani refused to lose their cool.
The singer-songwriter began trending Wednesday after being confronted by a right-wing influencer while waiting in a Starbucks drive-thru. A portion of the incident was captured in a now-viral video filmed and shared by Christian Walker, the 22-year-old son of GOP politician and former NFL player Herschel Walker.
The clip begins with the Christian shouting at Kehlani from his car, after he allegedly heard the artist call him an “a-hole” to the baristas.
“Everyone’s entitled to an opinion — you’re so rude, or you wouldn’t be telling barista workers that I’m an a–hole,” he said before approaching her car window. “Get your drink and go away. I can have an opinion like everybody else. Why are you entitled to an opinion and not me … You’re the a–hole. Get your drink and go.”
Kehlani remained calm during the ordeal, and admitted to warning the Starbucks workers about Christian’s behavior.
Kehlani returned to social media shortly after to shed more light on the situation. They claimed they saw Christian “visibly losing his shit” in the car behind them. Kehlani said Christian was complaining about the amount of Pride flags that were displayed inside the Starbucks and proceeded to “harass” an employee through the drive-thru speaker.
“I wasn’t gonna address it, but I think we should tell the truth,” Kehlani began. “… I go to this Starbucks often, and I also know and can visibly see that everybody that works there is of color, and a lot of them—can’t assume these things—but seem queer to me.”
Kehlani said they then went to the window and informed the workers that the “Trump-supporting” kid was behind them and had a habit of attacking the LGBTQ community.
“I’m like, ‘Watch out, because he’s coming up here with his fucking phone ready to record,” they said. “I’m like, ‘He’s a fucking asshole,’ because I’ve just watched him be an asshole for the last 10 minutes.”
Kehlani claims Christian didn’t start recording until after he began yelling at her. The singer accused the influencer of referring to them as a “bitch” who was holding up the line. Kehlani said they were on the phone with a therapist at the time, and was coincidently discussing the issue of misplaced anger.
“I’m going, ‘I know what you wanna do. You wanna get a reaction out of me so you can go viral,” Kehlani said. “‘and you can post this as some kind of take on people with my political stance, or assumed political stance.”
Kehlani also shared a screenshot of a 2016 tweet in which Christian declared his love for the singer.
Christian responded to the altercation on Instagram and called the Blue Water Road artist “a typical leftist.”
