Lawsuit against Kid Rock restaurant claims racism
Kid Rock is fired up over a racial discrimination lawsuit against one of his restaurants.
The singer took to Twitter on Friday to blast a report about the lawsuit — brought by a bartender who claims she was fired over her skin color and wearing her “hair natural” in “a curly afro” instead of straight like her Caucasian co-workers — in the Detroit Free Press. While he didn’t make clear what part of the outlet’s story he objects to, he called it “bad journalism” and an attempt “to get cheap clicks.” Coming close to using his pal Donald Trump‘s “fake news” term, he said “minor investigating instead of immediate reporting” would have revealed the “correct facts.”
Re: Detroit Free Press…. More bad journalism. Another attempt to get cheap clicks and views. Only minor investigating instead of immediate reporting would reveal the correct facts. -Kid Rock
— Kid Rock (@KidRock) February 1, 2019
A rep for Rock hasn’t responded to Yahoo’s request for comment, but the lawsuit was filed by Carinne Silverman-Maddox on Wednesday in Michigan. She alleges that while working at the singer’s Made in Detroit restaurant at Little Caesars Arena in Detroit, she was “abruptly suspended and dismissed for allegedly overpouring a single drink” on Oct. 13, the first day she showed up to work with her natural hairstyle, which she received “strange looks from the management” over. The lawsuit noted that her white co-workers who “poured drinks in the exact same manner” and were also approached by management over it “were able to keep their jobs.” Further, on the day she was suspended, she alleges in the lawsuit, a white employee was caught not checking customer IDs — breaking the law — yet that person was only given a warning.
Prior to the suspension, Silverman-Maddox, who is of African-American and Jewish ancestry, had never received “any level of discipline or negative coaching regarding her job performance,” according to the complaint. She said she poured drinks the way she had been trained and said that every bartender often “free poured” drinks because the restaurant lacked sufficient measuring devices.
According to the lawsuit, when Silverman-Maddox, the only African-American bartender of about 15 employed at the restaurant, was suspended, she disputed it with her managers. She was then removed from the schedule. Silverman-Maddox claims she was not officially terminated until the defendants received a letter from her attorney notifying them that she had contacted the Michigan Department of Civil Rights.
Rock is not a defendant in the lawsuit. The listed defendants are Delaware North Companies and Detroit District Sportservice, which oversee the operations in the restaurant, as well as Bobby Moscow LLC, Kid Rock’s Made in Detroit company, and his Top Dog Records label.
Yahoo reached out to Silverman-Maddox’s attorney Jack W. Schulz about Rock’s tweet and was told, “Ms. Silverman-Maddox, and the current/former coworkers who have come forward in her support, eagerly await Kid Rock’s side of the story. However, the allegations contained within the complaint were diligently researched and confirmed prior to the filing of the lawsuit.”
Schulz continued, “I implore Kid Rock to investigate the unequal treatment occurring within a business bearing his name rather than targeting the press for doing its job. I would imagine he has the ability to actually compel positive change internally.”
Rock, who helped open Little Caesars Arena in 2017 with a series of shows, used to incorporate the Confederate flag — widely viewed as a symbol of racism, slavery and segregation in the U.S. — into his act. However, he quietly retired it in 2011 — after he received a Great Expectations Award from Detroit’s NAACP.
Rock has a booming restaurant business, and another of his restaurants, Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock N’ Roll Steakhouse, in Nashville, was recently in the news. The City Council debated whether to approve the venue’s 20-foot butt-shaped bar sign. It eventually got the OK.
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