While Black Lives Matter co-founder Patriesse Cullours previously denied having used the foundation’s $6 million mansion – purchased to be used as a meeting venue and campus for Black artists – for any personal reasons, in a recent sitdown with the Associated Press, she admitted that that was a lie.
Though she owned up to her wrongdoings, Cullors maintains that “she nor anyone else in leadership misused millions of dollars in donations.” Defending the organization’s expensive purchase, she explained, “We really wanted to make sure that the global network foundation had an asset that wasn’t just financial resources, and we understood that not many Black-led organizations have property. They don’t own their property.”
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The two occasions on which she used the property for personal use were first in January of 2021, when she held a party as a toast to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ inauguration as President and Vice President of the United States, and second, for her school-aged son’s birthday party in March of the same year.
“I look back at that and think, that probably wasn’t the best idea,” Cullors said of her earlier decision to lie about never having used the mansion for her own reasons.
Elsewhere in the interview, the activist broke down BLM’s decision to buy a home rather than a commercial space. “We looked at commercial buildings and we looked at homes and then we found this really amazing space that’s a sweet spot between commercial and residential,” she explained, also mentioning the property’s soundstage, which reportedly enabled her organization to produce its own podcasts.
Interestingly enough, Cullors’ interview comes days after she hopped on Instagram Live to allege that Candace Owens was outside of her house, “demanding” to talk to her – read Owens’ response here, and tap back in with HNHH later for more pop culture news updates.
[Via]