Uncle Nearest Whiskey co-founder, Fawn Weaver, is addressing the backlash she has received on social media. After an interaction with a fan went viral, Weaver took to Instagram to reflect and share some context on the situation.
“Earlier this week, I broke the all-time record for the largest bottle signing in Georgia history. The bottle was by far our highest price point ever in a year when the spirits market is trading down. Every location we release at, including DC and Maryland, sold out within an hour. That should have been the story. Instead, the headline became 60 Seconds at the start of the night,” she said in the video.
Weaver’s video is in response to the recent backlash she received on social media after a clip of a man approaching her, claiming to be her former schoolmate, went viral. During the interaction, the man asked her if she remembered him, since they had been classmates in middle school. However, social media took offense to Weaver’s reaction because instead of just saying “no,” the entrepreneur brought the situation to the crowd, saying: “Can I tell y’all that this man just said, ‘Do you remember me?’ Make it make sense to me. He said we were in the same class in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades.”
“Are you serious? I do not. I’m sorry. I don’t remember the sixth, the seventh, or the eighth grade,” she’s heard saying in the video.
After social media users called her rude, Weaver took to Instagram to take accountability.
“That moment is mine,” she reflected. “I own it, I apologize immediately, and there are parts of it I would handle differently today. Accountability doesn’t require perfection; it requires ownership, and I’ve taken it.”
She went on to share her perspective of the interaction: “As I stepped out of the car, I would have stopped several times for photos. When I turned, a man I didn’t know was standing directly in my path, inches from my face, no smile, no greeting, just a blank stare. He asked if I knew him from school more than 35 years ago. He mentioned a middle school and two other people.”
“I went to three different schools between the sixth and the ninth grade and graduated from a different one entirely. So I was startled, and so was everyone around me. Security was close, but I’ve always asked him to stand back unless I believe I’m in danger [because] I like to speak to everyone, hug everyone, make people feel seen,” she continued. “So instead of calling security, I tried to move us out of that moment that I couldn’t fully read, and I did that with a joke.”
