KICKED OUT
TEARFUL Leona Lewis has revealed a racist shop assistant told her "not to touch" anything after she won The X Factor.
As Black Lives Matter protests continued in the capital on Sunday Leona, 35, recalled her shocking experience that took place on a posh high street in west London almost a decade ago.
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Leona said shortly after she won The X Factor in 2006 she was shopping with her dad, who she described as "the most lovable big black guy" and said they were targetted by a racist store assistant.
She said in a video on Instagram: "A few years ago, my dad and I were on a high street in London.
"At the time, my management company was in Fulham, so we were walking around the area after a meeting.
"I didn’t realise at the time that all of the other customers were white. Me and my dad were the only black people."
The pop star said things took a turn for the worse when the woman began "hovering around" them.
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Leona continued: "Eventually, she came up to my dad and I and said, ‘You need to put that stuff down, you’re not allowed to touch it’.
"Every other person was picking stuff up, looking at it. [So] I immediately knew what was happening and I asked her, ‘Why? Everyone else is picking stuff up.
"Why do we have to put stuff down? We’re just looking at it, I’m probably going to buy it.'"
When Leona refused, the assistant asked them to leave and threatened to call the police.
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Leona got more emotional in the video as she recalled that she refused to leave, with the memory of being targetted still stinging.
Leona said: "It sparked a rage in me. I started saying, ‘No, I’m not going to put it down, I’m going to buy it. Why are you targeting us?
"(By now it was just) me, this woman, and my dad in the store. And… she became really defensive, really agitated, and ran behind the counter.
"She said she was going to call the police on us if we didn’t leave."
Leona admitted: "I couldn’t calm down because I was so angry. I knew what this woman was doing to us. But my dad has been in positions like this before and he knew that I needed to make myself smaller. And that just enraged me even more."
"He managed to get me to leave the store. And I sat in the car that was parked around the corner, and I just sobbed, absolutely sobbed. And my dad came out, grabbed something from the car, and went back into the shop."
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Leona, who grew up in Islington, north London, said her incredible dad had gone back inside the shop with one of her CDs and explained who his daughter was.
The assistant agreed to apologise and followed him to their car - but denied she had been racist when she kicked the pair out of the shop.
Leona recalled: "She said, ‘I’m so so sorry, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know who you were. And my heart kind of sank.
"[So] I confronted her and said, ‘You are racist. You’re a racist. You targeted me and my dad, you wanted to throw us out of the store because we’re black. You’re racist.’"
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Reflecting on her experience, Leona told viewers: "This is the conditioning we have. This is racism. So when people in the UK are saying that racism isn’t a problem here, it is a problem. It’s a big problem.
"The white people in that store left in disgust because they knew it was wrong, but they didn’t say anything. And because they didn’t say anything, the situation escalated.
"For the people that are not speaking out now, you’re the people who just left."
Leona's video came two weeks after the death of George Floyd in the US in police custody, which has sparked hundreds of thousands of people to protest and give support to the anti-racism movement.
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