Waffle House responds after viral video of employee holding baby, scam
Waffle House stated their employee was never suspended and that a scammer used the incident to their advantage
A video of a Waffle House employee in South Carolina carrying a baby during her shift went viral last week. Despite a narrative that the employee was a mother caring for a child, Waffle House has denied that and revealed that a scammer took advantage of the situation.
Initially, a woman claiming to be Tiffany Clark came forward to share the reason for the incident that sparked so much outrage. She presented herself to TMZ as a mother of four. She explained that the baby in the video was not hers, but actually her 4-month-old niece Octavia, the daughter of her brother who recently passed away.
She claimed to have received a call from the child’s grandmother about an unexpected family emergency the weekend before the video was recorded. The timing of the call could not have been more inconvenient given that she was headed to her overnight shift at Waffle House.
TikTok user @kizzle260 shared the clip of the employee last weekend, and the video quickly racked up over four million views on the popular platform.
The person further claimed to have been suspended by Waffle House. However, the story proved not to be accurate following an investigation by the food chain.
Waffle House’s VP of Public Relations, Njeri Boss, recently told TMZ that the company investigated the TikTok video and “have determined that the media portrayals and social media posts are not accurate.”
“While an employee of ours was recorded holding a baby at work, she is not related to that baby in any manner, never identified herself as the person in the TikTok video, never provided a CashApp account to receive any donations, never gave an interview to any media outlet, and never was suspended from her job,” Boss continued.
The rep also clarified that the actual woman in the video was holding her co-worker’s baby in an attempt to quickly settle the crying child. It was nothing more than a lapse in judgment and she’s since been coached and re-trained on proper safety guidelines moving forward.
“We caution against further dissemination of that false story and the damages that might result, not to mention the help that might give to support an apparent fraud on the public,” the chain concluded.
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