Stephanie Pratt came under fire for suggesting violence against looters amid the nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd.
“Shoot the looters – using this tragedy as their excuse to rob and burn all of our towns down,” the Hills: New Beginnings alum, 34, tweeted on Sunday, May 31.
Shoot the looters – using this tragedy as their excuse to rob and burn all of our towns down.
— Stephanie Pratt (@stephaniepratt) June 1, 2020
Pratt’s post quickly backfired as several Twitter users pointed out that she was arrested for shoplifting 14 years prior. Many of them resurfaced the Made in Chelsea alum’s mugshot, including Bad Girls Club star Angela Babicz.
Oh cause I thought the thief who shoplifted more than $1,300 worth of clothing from Neiman Marcus said some…. https://t.co/EypzndREp7 pic.twitter.com/iopLe7E7Wd
— Angela Babicz (@angelababicz) June 1, 2020
“LOOOOOOL come on now Stephanie. Did you really tweet this for the world to see knowing you got arrested for looting. That’s wild,” Batwoman actor Camrus Johnson tweeted. Scrubs alum Bob Clendenin, meanwhile, wrote, “I’m trying to guess from your booking photo what you were stealing. Is attention sold in stores?”
In May 2006, Pratt, then 20, was taken into police custody for stealing more than $1,300 worth of clothing from a Neiman Marcus store in Hawaii with a friend. She was subsequently charged with theft and drug possession.
The former MTV personality looked back on her arrest in her 2015 memoir, Made in Reality.
“I woke up handcuffed to a hospital bed. When I landed back in L.A., Mom took me back home and I went upstairs to my old bedroom and I felt so much shame,” she recalled, noting that she abused cocaine and crystal meth as a teenager and would smoke the latter “probably 12 or 13 times a day.”
Pratt was arrested again in October 2009 for driving under the influence after attending her sister-in-law Heidi Montag’s birthday. She served three years of probation for the crime.
Thousands of protestors took to the streets of cities including Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Brooklyn and Washington, D.C., in search of justice for Floyd, who died on May 25 after police officer Derek Chauvin pressed a knee into his neck for nearly nine minutes. Videos of Floyd, 46, crying out, “I can’t breathe” flooded social media last week, leading to the arrest of Chauvin, 44, on charges of third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.
While preliminary autopsy results determined that Floyd “had underlying health conditions” and did not appear to have died from strangulation or asphyxiation, celebrities including Jay-Z and Rihanna have called for Chauvin’s charges to be raised to first-degree.
Us Weekly has reached out to Pratt for comment.
For more information, visit Blacklivesmatter.com.
