(Variety) - GoFundMe has suspended conservative political commentator Candace Owens’s fundraiser for an Alabama cafe whose co-owner criticized the George Floyd protests. Owens also came under fire for controversial comments about Floyd while speaking with Glenn Beck.
Owens raised more than $200,000 for Birmingham’s Parkside Cafe, whose co-owner Michael Dykes said Floyd was a “thug” and protesters were “idiots” in a text message to a co-worker that was posted online. Three employees quit working and people online began boycotting the cafe after Dykes’ comments came out.
Owens also came under fire for controversial comments about Floyd, who died after a police officer kneeled on his neck for more than eight minutes.
“The fact that he has been held up as a martyr sickens me. George Floyd was not a good person, I don’t care who wants to spin that. I don’t care how CNN wants to make you think he changed his life around,” she said in an interview with Beck. “He was just after his sixth or fifth stint in prison.”
On Sunday, Owens revealed that her campaign to support Dykes’ cafe was suspended by GoFundMe after the company found her fundraiser “to be in support of hate, violence, harassment, bullying, discrimination, terrorism, or intolerance of any kind.”
Owens lashed out on Twitter in response to GoFundMe’s decision
“Guess my message to little kids would be for them not to idolize men that: Get high on fentanyl, get high on meth, use counterfeit bills, shove guns into the stomaches of pregnant women while robbing them, go to prison 5 times. What a truly horrible message I carry,” she wrote.
