After the accusations of a Dallas business owner keeping a $4,000 tip that was meant to be split evenly went viral, Keith Lee returned to his platform to diffuse any confusion.
“I said y’all can divvy it out however y’all feel is necessary,” Lee said.
Deon Spelling, the son of Sweetly Seasoned business owner Kim Viverette, a Black woman, posted the clip of when Lee said the generous tip can be divvied out as they feel is necessary. Spelling interpreted Lee’s words as his mom and him would decide what to do with the $4,000.
“I never said that,” Lee said.
Lee said what he meant was for Viverette to distribute the money in whatever way was most convient for everyone, whether the method was Zelle, Venmo, Apple Pay, cash or Cash App. He also said he thought he delivery was clear and Spelling and Viverette intentionally misconstrued Lee’s words, which he didn’t appreciate.
Lee visited the Sweetly Seasoned food truck in North Dallas during his food tour after Spelling asked Lee to come and shine a light on his mother’s business of having low foot traffic despite being an award-winning chef. Lee came out, and gave a $4,000 tip to be distributed to: A barber and braider in the parking lot, a food truck cashier and the business owner. Lee also paid over $800 more to pay for everyone else’s food in line. The cashier took to social media to accuse Viverette not only of keeping the full $4,000 to herself, but also charging every customer in line after the third customer in line came up to order.
Lee said he paid his full $4,000 tip on one system at the food truck because he didn’t want anyone giving out their personal information while so many people were watching on social media live streams.
“For the mom [Viverette] to go on the back end, and disregard where my heart was at and what I felt God was telling me to do in that moment and distribute the money how she felt was necessary is 100% wrong, in my opinion,” Lee said.
Despite his thoughts on the matter, Lee told his nearly 16 million TikTok followers not to bully Viverette online.
You can watch Lee’s full response below.
@keith_lee125 💕 Keith Speaks 💕 God Is Amazing 🙏🏽 #foodcritic
After Lee’s post, Sweetly Seasoned LLC posted an apology on its Facebook page.
“Sweetly Seasoned would like to apologize!” the post read. “We thought and believed we were right, but unfortunately we were wrong! This has been a huge miscommunication on our part, and funds are being released!”
