GREENVILLE, SC – Celebrity Comedian Amy Schumer posted a picture of a local man on her Instagram Saturday as backlash for a selfie gone wrong in downtown Greenville. Now, that man is defending his selfie video and says he wants everyone to know his side of the story.
Schumer held a comedy show in Greenville Friday night. She was downtown Greenville Saturday and made the Instagram post the same day. She claims a man scared her and insisted on taking photos even after she asked him not to. The post says the man said “no it’s America and we paid for you.” She added that he was the reason she wouldn’t be taking photos with fans any longer.
The post has received national attention and has since gotten thousands of likes and comments. It reads:
This guy in front of his family just ran up next to me scared the **** out of me. Put a camera in my face. I asked him to stop and he said “no it’s America and we paid for you” this was in front of his daughter. I was saying stop and no. Great message to your kid. Yes legally you are allowed to take a picture of me. But I was asking you to stop and saying no. I will not take picture with people anymore and it’s because of this dude in Greenville.”
She also went to Twitter to thank fans for support.. She said she will still take pictures with nice people but pressed that she doesn’t owe anyone anything and that if she says no, that it should not be done.
Leslie Brewer says the man in the post is him and that he believes the situation has been blown out of proportion . He says Schumer’s post doesn’t tell the whole story and that he was doing what any fan would do.
“I’m being looked at as somebody that I’m not. You know, at first it was funny but as the days go on, it is kind of like, wow,” he said.
Brewer says he was with a group of people enjoying downtown Greenville when he began to hear chatter that Schumer was nearby. He says there were other people taking pictures and people in their cars honking and yelling at the comedian.
Brewer claims that when he spotted Schumer ahead of him waiting at a crosswalk on the corner of McBee Avenue and Main Street, that he decided to take an Instagram video. He walked up to where Schumer was and began recording. That’s when he says the comedian got upset. He says he then apologized and stopped recording.CLICK HERE TO WATCH BREWER’S INSTAGRAM VIDEO.
Before the video cuts off, Schumer is heard asking Brewer to delete the video. But he told her that he wouldn’t after he got upset at comments he says she made about his parenting. He says Schumer walked away but came back to take a photo of him. She then told him she would tell all of her social media followers what happened, according to Brewer.
“She gets mad. She’s like ‘that’s disrespectful’. She turns to my daughter and wife and says ‘is this the type of example you want to set for them,” he added. “I wish I would have finished recording. I wish I would have never stopped to show people what really happened.”
Brewer says he’s taken pictures with other celebrities and comedians before and never faced backlash. After Schumer’s post, he says he is being bullied by her fans. He’s been threatened and shamed on social media.
“I think she’s tried to paint some kind of picture of me that I am an aggressive guy and that I came up to her. If you see my video, you can tell that she wasn’t scared,” he added. “At the end of the day, I feel as though I did what every other fan would have done if they would have seen one of their celebrities.”
He says he doesn’t want this incident to be a representation for the city. “Greenville is the best place to live. That is the craziest thing about this whole ordeal. I’ve never had a bad experience in South Carolina until that day and it was like, wow.”
