A Houston socialite is “asking forgiveness” after she was caught on video harassing a mixed-race couple hosting a photo shoot for their young daughter last month.
“A week ago, I let my emotions overtake my better self,” Franci Neely Crane said in an apology video posted to YouTube on Saturday. “I apologize from the bottom of my heart.”
The 30-second clip comes nearly a week after cellphone video of Neely, former wife of Houston Astros owner Jim Crane, in a heated dispute with a local couple went viral.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=327353434557487
Houston resident Kelyn Alyssa detailed the incident in a Facebook post, saying she and her husband had gone to North Boulevard to meet with a photographer to have pictures taken for their daughter’s first birthday on Feb. 16. Their sidewalk shoot was interrupted, however, when Alyssa said Neely pulled up in her Jaguar convertible, rolled down the window and shouted that they were “trampling the grass that WE pay for.”
Neely reportedly then got out of her car to confront the couple on the green space in the upscale neighborhood, and a war of words ensued.
“In the midst of her shouting, I immediately and calmly asked her to restrain her dog as it made a beeline for the baby and was coming dangerously close to my child,” Alyssa wrote. “I actually crouched next to the baby, and put my hand out to try to shoo this strange dog away.”
Neely refused to curb her dog, however, telling the couple they were on private property and that she “can do whatever she wants there,” according to Alyssa. At one point in the video, the white woman shames the photographer for bringing “these people … who are crazy” into “MY neighborhood.”
Neely is also seen on camera assaulting Alyssa’s husband at least twice, attempting to smack the cellphone out of his hand. The couple’s daughter is heard wailing in the background.
Facing backlash, Neely has since changed her tune.
I ask for forgiveness and understanding,” she said in her YouTube video. “I love Houston and ask that we come together to heal.”
Alyssa and her husband declined to comment on the apology, telling Chron.com, “We weren’t being addressed.”
Houston authorities are currently investigating the incident.
Watch more in the video below.
