Posted on July 12, 2023

Poolside Karen Breaks Her Silence and Claims She Was the One Attacked

Shannon Hunt, Daily Mail, July 10, 2023

The woman dubbed ‘Poolside Karen’ after a rant of her shouting abuse at a group of Latinos has spoken out for the first time – and insists she is no racist.

Blair Featherman told DailyMail.com exclusively that she was goaded into her ill-thought comments by a wannabe model who is desperate for TikTok views.

And she said she was the one who was attacked by a group of women, but the posted video carefully avoided showing that.

‘I have been trying to stay silent and not comment about this, but there are things the video doesn’t show,’ art consultant Featherman, 49, said.

‘I’m not a racist. It was deceptively edited and put together to tell a narrative that isn’t true.’

In the video posted on TikTok by hairdresser Jada Gallardo, Featherman is shown shouting racist epithets at a group of people sitting around the pool at the Alta Green Mountain apartment complex in Lakewood, Colorado, where units rent for up to $6,500.

She called the group ‘trash’ and said they should ‘go back down to Denver’ before berating them for ‘not knowing what Hermes is’.

But Featherman, who claims to be an expert in Feng Shui, the Chinese art of furniture arrangement, said she was attacked after complaining that the group was breaking rules about the number of guests a resident at the complex could take to the pool.

She admits she was wrong to take the bait and get involved in an argument but said things had developed to a point of exasperation.

Featherman told DailyMail.com that the group was loud and there were too many people around the pool who did not live at Alta Green Mountain.

That is when things escalated, she claimed, saying members of the group started shouting racial epithets at her and filming her as she sat poolside. ‘They were calling me white b***h and white this and white that,’ she said.

‘I was already having a bad day,’ Featherman said. ‘But this was too much.’

As she reached for the phone, she claimed she was physically attacked. One woman clawed at her hair so violently that her artificial nails broke off.

The alleged attack is not included in the video that Gallardo, 32, posted on TikTok and Featherman said the video is cut so it then follows on several minutes later from a different angle.

In the chaotic aftermath of the event, she is seen in the video on a lounge chair, furious and frantic, while her boyfriend calls for help and the agitated crowd surrounds her from above. Everyone is seen shouting at each other.

‘I couldn’t believe what just happened, my heart was racing, and I was so full of adrenaline,’ she recalled. ‘I couldn’t think straight.’

Enraged and disoriented, she still had possession of the woman’s nails, and decided to open her hand so the group could see.

‘I have heard that people are assuming they’re pills that I am holding in my hand, but it’s actually her nails that I’m showing her,’ she said.

The video ends with police being called to the complex although no one was arrested.

DailyMail.com reached out to Gallardo for comment but she did not respond.

In the widely seen video, Featherman, who filed for bankruptcy in 2019 claiming she had only $100 in her checking account and $20 in cash, appears to be angered by the group’s presence. You have a f*****g Mexican party in a pool,’ she shouts

At this point, she approaches the woman filming, before physically accosting her.

‘You can’t do that. You can’t just record me,’ Featherman says, before hitting the phone out of the hands of the person filming.

Before that, an added commentary from the app’s voice feature is heard branding the woman ‘racist Karen’, while an accompanying caption asked social media users to help identify her.

The spliced footage then jumps to what is presumed to be a few minutes later, with Featherman now being held down by a male member of her own party on one of the pool’s sun loungers.

As this is happening, she continues to reprimand the family over their presence.

Several proceed to surround and argue with the woman – all while she continues to shout while attempting to confront the now angry group.

Amid the commotion, she can still be heard uttering xenophobic statements, such as ‘Get the f**k out’ and ‘go back down to Denver’

The woman proceeds to yell and shout for nearly the entire duration of the video, which is just under a minute long.

When asked by one of the victims to leave the pool herself, she is heard responding that she lives in Lakewood – the affluent suburb where the complex is set.

At one point she is heard angrily telling the family, who had been having a poolside bash: ‘I live here, nowhere you ever came from, you f****** low-class slime.’

Original Article