Shaquille O’Neal, Waka Flocka Flame and Utah Jazz guard Trey Burke just got hit with lawsuits for reposting & mocking a photo of a man with a rare disorder.
Back in late April, Flocka and NBA star Shaq and Trey took to their social media pages to mock the appearance of Jahmel Binion, 23, a young man suffering from a rare disorder known as ectodermal dysplasia. Although their mocking posts have since been deleted, Binion is now filing a defamation lawsuit against all three of them.
Binion, supposedly a fan of each accused party, is living with a condition which causes facial deformities, tooth loss and limited hair growth. A selfie of Binion began floating around the Internet and the stars soon caught wind of it.
After catching an immense amount of backlash from fans and the media, the three accused made it their mission to publicly apologize to Binion, but not everyone felt the apologies were heart-felt. Personally, Binion felt the apologies lacked sincerity. The defamation lawsuit states the insults from the three were seen by more than 8.4 million people.
“When they said sorry, I felt like they were saying it to get the pressure off of them for being considered ‘bad people,” said Binion to the Macomb Daily in Michigan.
Read their apologies below:
Waka Flocka: “Right I wanna apologize to #JahmelBinion for being a ass and making a mockery of him #SaluteLiLHomie #WeAllTheSame Waka Flocka.”
Shaquille O’Neal: “Made a new friend today when I called and apologized to Jahmel Binion. Great dude.#alwayslearning #MYBADCUZ,”
Trey Burke: “Had the opportunity to talk to Jahmel Binion yesterday and apologize about the post on IG! #Intentionswerenttohurt #MyApologiesfam.”
Oh boy … let the celebrity lawsuits begin to pour in. Without addressing this situation at all…. what I’m about to say is generalization. The bottom line is this as a celeb. You can’t do anything in public any more. While it’s perfectly okay for non-famous citizens to post offensive comments, make memes, etc, it only becomes bullying when someone on the cover of a magazine, album reports reposts it. SMH…. It’s a bad double standard.
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