Former NFL star Reggie Bush wound up in an online fight with strategist Karen Civil over the weekend concerning a GoFundMe set up to benefit the family of slain rapper Nipsey Hussle.
The issue began when the former NFL running back tweeted a link on Friday, April 12, asking for donations to help establish a trust fund for Hussle’s two young children, one of whom he shared with his girlfriend, actress Lauren London.
In an accompanying video, which also included Bush’s wife Lilit Avagyan, he said, “As a tribute to Nipsey, I would like to offer support to his children, and all funds from this GoFundMe will be transferred directly into a trust that was created solely for his legacy, his two children, Kross & Emani. I’m making a donation to start this off. Please join me in honoring him in this way.”
Bush and Avagyan had also donated $10,000 to Kross and Emani.
However, things took a turn by Saturday, when Civil stepped in to ask Bush to remove the fundraiser, saying it was not asked of him to raise money and he did so despite this.
Both Bush’s and Civil’s tweets have since been deleted, however, the latter also tweeted, “No disrespect to Reggie Bush but Nipsey Life Partner nor his family asked for this to be done when he originally requested. Appreciate, everyone wanting to find ways to support Nip but his foundation for community efforts will be launched soon.”
That tweet has also been deleted.
But that wasn’t the end of it. Bush hit back with a lengthy post on Instagram Sunday that has also been deleted. In it, he defended his actions and urged people to “check the facts.”
“Wait wait wait wait one minute,” he said April 14. “I just heard about this story I’m sorry but I must defend myself here. This is beyooond me! I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO GAIN FROM THIS!!!! … Not sure where this came from or who you spoke to but you must be sadly mistaken if you think we just lost our minds and made up some fake gofundme page.”
The two wound up going back and forth in the comments of Bush’s now-deleted Instagram post, too.
The social media strategist — who had Hussle as a client — charged that Bush “literally had this campaign go up while [Nipsey] was finally being laid to rest” despite being asked not to. Bush stated that was not the case and the campaign was posted the day after Hussle’s Thursday memorial service “out of respect” for the family.
“If your intentions were pure, you would have honored the family’s request,” Civil said. “The family said no and you should have respected Lauren’s wishes. We can further discuss this offline w/ his family.”
After that, fans began to weigh in on the establishment of the GoFundMe, which has since been pulled down, and Bush and Civil hashing things out online.
“what do they need 100k from us for anyway….they have the money and they know all these famous ppl with money. Why ask for more from his fans than to send these condolences, prayers, love, and respect💯”
“This is weird af.”
“yo this man got laid out and crawled off the field……..”
“He meant well yall wrong asf.”
“This is sick.”
