The legal battle between a TikToker and a Chicago restaurant is quickly gaining steam online after a woman posted a viral video claiming the restaurant’s security personnel assaulted her and threw her down the stairs.
Julia Reel, whose handle is @juliareel on TikTok, posted a now-deleted video in which she discussed her March 10 visit to Hubbard Inn, a restaurant in the River North area of Chicago. In it, she claimed that a bouncer violently handled her and a friend as they were escorted out of a bathroom on the restaurant’s second floor.
“I’m immediately grabbed by this man and he’s grabbing my arm, he’s pushing me, he’s manhandling me,” the 22-year-old said, adding that security even screamed at her before shoving her down two sets of stairs.
“I’m just pushed down. He sends me flying down the staircase,” Reel claimed. “Hysterical at this point, I think I start to kind of yell, scream back at him, kind of push back at him, and he takes me a second time and shoves me again and sends me flying down the rest of the staircase.”
The TikTok video was reportedly viewed more than 100,000 times before Reel took it down. She even went private on the platform.
Hubbard Inn swiftly filed a lawsuit against Reel, alleging she defamed the restaurant and that the business had to weather a barrage of negative reviews and threats from the public because of her video.
The restaurant staff also posted a video of their own to social media that included security footage showing Reel being escorted safely out of the restaurant. At no point in the video is she seen being shoved or manhandled by security, as she claimed. She and her friend are seen walking down the stairs before a bouncer points them in the direction of an exit.
The lawsuit states that Reel and her friend had to be escorted out because they were verbally abusive to staffers in the restroom.
Despite what the footage shows, Reel’s attorneys aren’t buying Hubbard Inn’s defense.
They called the restaurant’s video “self-serving” and claimed their investigation “revealed facts entirely contrary to the misleading narrative provided on social media by Hubbard Inn.”
Her lawyers allege there is a two-minute gap unaccounted for in the security footage the restaurant released and that the area where Reel “suffered her injuries” was not videotaped.
The restaurant confirmed they don’t have security cameras in every part of their venue and that the video they released does not show eight steps of the staircase. They also said the edited videos only have a 45-second gap.
Reel’s attorneys say their client was treated for a concussion and bruises to her arm and head at a hospital after the alleged incident and filed a police report.
“Respectfully, we urge the public to hold off on a rush to judgment and/or victim shaming until all of the evidence is presented in a court of law,” Reel’s attorneys wrote in a video statement.
