Grammy Award winner Fantasia Barrino has accused an Airbnb host of racially profiling her and her family during a recent stay.
TODAY reported that Barrino posted about her incident on social media, sharing on X that the host of the Airbnb home in Mooresville, North Carolina, she booked on the company’s website requested that she and her family leave after claiming they were having a loud celebration.
“My stomach is so uneasy this morning as I’m riding back to my home in the cold and rain,” the singing star of “The Color Purple” wrote. “I don’t say much when people do me wrong, but I can’t stay quiet on how my family and I were just treated from a host with @Airbnb @airbnbhelp trying to kick my kids and I out at 12:00 midnight. The host accused us of having a party with loud noises outdoors because they saw balloons being dropped off and a game truck with no generator in the early part of the day.”
According to Barrino, the Airbnb host had not made it clear that they “weren’t allowed to have any company over,” stating in her post that “the amount of guests we reserved for are the amount of guest who stayed the night.”
The home’s “sayings on the wall,” unused party supplies and key amenities — which included an outside fire pit, a jacuzzi and a “well equipped game room” in the garage — all gave Barrino the impression that the property hosted “parties and/or gatherings” regularly, she wrote.
Barrino said she had hoped to throw the party for her son and his friends, aged 10-12, to “make him feel special” because she had been traveling for over a month promoting the long-awaited film, “The Color Purple,” which opens in theaters on Dec. 25.
“It’s evident to me this was racial profiling, and the treatment we received was due to the color of our skin,” she posted.
TheGrio reached out to Airbnb, who responded and said they’ve reached out to Barrino “so we can look into what happened and offer our support.”
The communications representative also shared a response they sent Barrino on X, in which they provided a link to Airbnb’s nondiscrimination policy and requested that the singer “please send us a DM with the email address connected to your booking, so our team can follow up.”
According to TODAY, Barrino posted a lengthy Instagram post detailing her experience with Airbnb, complete with a carousel of pictures showing the “diverse group of technologically and robotically inclined kids” she alleged were asked to leave the property on the first night.
“We have lost our internal compass of Love! Love moves us to deeply consider, it shifts us out of places of sympathy where we can gain a real understanding through empathy,” she wrote.
“Gaining and understanding wasn’t the desire, while we were being screened on various Ring cameras, the happiness and ‘character’ of the kids present also wasn’t considered,” Barrino added, sharing that “at 6a, in the freezing rain, with sleepy kids, we loaded up 4 vehicles, respectfully cleaned and organized everything back to its original place and we left.”
Never miss a beat: Get our daily stories straight to your inbox with theGrio’s newsletter.