A TikToker has gone viral after claiming she got sued by Airbnb guests who were “triggered” by her disability.
Update, October 14: The TikToker has now deleted her social media accounts, and other TikTok users have cast doubt on the veracity of her claims.
Airbnb host Jade, who said she is disabled, took to TikTok and YouTube, claiming that she has been sued for £250,000 by guests for allegedly leaving them “traumatised” by her disability.
The content creator, who said she is terminally ill with Huntington’s disease, has been documenting her experience on TikTok. She previously claimed that the guests who had booked to stay in her Irish home for €50 a night demanded she remove “all disability aids from my own home and if not that I leave.”
Jade also claimed that Airbnb supported the visitors in this regard, instructing her to refund the visitors, because they “didn’t like” her accessible doorbell.
Jade’s story quickly made the rounds on both TikTok and Twitter, with users arguing the lawsuit was ableist. A number of viral tweets on the topic sparked debate too.
Despite the viral nature of the story, the lawsuit against the host is not been made public, causing some to doubt if it is real.
The TikToker (who posts under the username thisworldcanbeaccessible) expressed her frustration about the incident in a series of videos, which have now been deleted, and started a petition to “show a Judge that disabled people aren’t scary.”
In an online petition which has more than 18,000 signatures at the time of writing, Jade wrote: “I can only share my side of this situation legally, so I am not asking you to support me personally-simply to support the statement that disabled people should not risk being sued for their disability allegedly ‘traumatising’ another person.
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“As a disabled person I cannot hide myself away. I cannot change my disability … and I cannot hide myself away in case I ‘trigger’ someone.”
In a now-deleted YouTube video, Jade said she is “heartbroken” that some of the Equality Act, which outlaws discrimination against someone based on their disability, is “being potentially eroded”.
“This is a cancel culture situation,” she said. “Because when you break this down, what this people want me to accept is that any single person can say, ‘my feelings are I don’t like your disability, so you need to remove yourself’. Where do we draw the line to that?”
Since her initial posts, speculation about the incident has continued, with some doubting how real the situation was. Some have claimed that she is posing as another person, claiming to have found images of her ‘real’ self. Both her TikTok and YouTube accounts are now gone, with only a website remaining.
In a statement posted to the website, it reads, “My name is Carrie Jade Williams and I am writing this on the advice of my legal team. I am an entirely separate individual to my sister whose mental health past has been dragged into my life as an attempt to discredit my advocacy work.”
The statement continues that she is “appalled that internet trolls have attempted to discredit my advocacy by bringing my sisters past and suggesting I am she.”
TikTokers are now trying to decipher if there are in fact two sisters, or if it was a ruse. Others have been supportive, alleging that the ‘bullying’ has forced the TikToker to leave social media.