Activist Shaun King said on Instagram that he and his family have decided to move out of their home after pictures of his $842,000 house were shared online by the New York Post and other sources.
King wrote on social media, “Today, I’ve had to make a heartbreaking decision. After a combination of Fox News, the NY Post, and other outlets posted pictures of my home across the Internet, we’ve now seen our address posted all over the internet. Strangers have already started coming by the house. My kids can’t even go outside and play during the final month of summer break. So, we’re moving.”
On July 31, the New York Post shared images of King’s home, saying he lived like a “one-percenter in a sprawling lakefront home.”
According to public records, King’s new home has 5-bedrooms and sits on Farrington Lake. It features a gourmet kitchen surrounded by lush trees. King moved from New York City where he shared a 2-bedroom apartment with his wife and children.
The $842,000 property was purchased by King’s wife Rai King in November 2020 and the family moved in earlier this year from Brooklyn.
King wrote on Instagram that his wife had worked for 20 years before buying the home, which was purchased on an FHA loan, he said.
“It was a quiet and peaceful refuge for her, for our 5 kids, for the dogs, and for our mothers. And it wasn’t excessive…But now we’re not safe. And will never be safe here again.”
King has been a prominent face in the Black Lives Matter movement, although he’s been criticized by family members of those who have lost loved ones to police brutality and by other activists.
Samaria Rice, the mother of Tamir Rice, who was 12 when he was gunned down by a Cleveland police officer in 2014, has accused King of profiting from her son’s death by collecting funds without her permission.
“Personally I don’t understand how you sleep at night. I never gave you permission to raise nothing,” Rice wrote on Instagram in June after King claimed that he’d spoken to the mother on episode 469 of The North Star podcast “The Breakdown with Shaun King.”
She added, “as a white man acting black you are an imposter that can not be trusted….you are a self-centered selfish person and God will deal with you White man.” She wrote the latter in reference to the ongoing controversy surrounding King’s ethnicity.
In 2019, activist DeRay McKesson challenged King’s integrity in a post on Medium, and called for him to refrain from attempts at organizing and fundraising in the future.
On Instagram, King expressed his devastation about having to leave his home with his wife and five children.
“I waffle back and forth between being utterly heartbroken over it and so angry that I could scream. That people did this to my wife and kids, with no concern for their safety is despicable. And shame on every Black man and woman who shared it with glee. Shame on you for what you’ve done to them. That you’ve fallen for so many lies about me, and decided to turn the lives of my wife and kids upside down in the process has taken a chunk out of my soul,” King wrote.
“I’ll be honest with you. I’m going to be bitter over this for a very long time. I took July off of social media to just be with my family and then this. I don’t deserve this.”
