BLM activist Shaun King blasted as grifter after report reveals his ‘lavish’ new lakeside home

Liberal activist Shaun King, a promoter of social-justice movements such as Black Lives Matter, is facing accusations that he lives like the very one-percenters he so often criticizes.

Given he previously worked for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, and is a promoter of social justice causes and a critic of the elite, it may come as a surprise to some that King now lives rather lavishly himself, according to a New York Post report on his sprawling lakefront property in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

King moved to the 3,000sq ft property from a two-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn, the report claims. His new house reportedly has a kitchen fit for a gourmet, five bedrooms, and a lakefront backyard. It was allegedly bought by King’s wife, educator Rai-Tonicia King, for $842,000 in November of last year, the Post reports, citing public records.

Shaun King has earned a controversial reputation as an activist, with many questioning his fundraising methods and financial commitment to the movements he claims to support. He was accused by grant-giving organization the Proteus Fund of failing to return or explain where its donation to Justice Together, an anti-police brutality group King founded, went after the initiative was abruptly disbanded in 2015.  

Samaria Rice, the mother of 12-year-old Tamir, who was shot and killed by police in Cleveland in 2014, has publicly blasted King for using her son’s name to raise questionable funds. 

“Personally I don’t understand how you sleep at night,” she wrote to King last month in response to his claiming to have had a personal conversation with her. “I never gave you permission to raise nothing. Along with the United States, you robbed me for the death of my son,” Rice said in an Instagram post, in which she also accused King of lying about his racial heritage. “As a white man acting black, you are a[n] imposter that cannot be trusted.”

King’s race has long been a subject of intense speculation, fueled by an investigation conducted by the right-wing outlet Breitbart News, which dug up the activist’s birth certificate, revealing that his father was white. King rejected the claim, arguing that the man listed on the certificate was not his biological father, and insisted his mother had told him his father was black.

The details of his recent real-estate foray have only added fuel to the fire, with both liberal and conservative critics quick to label King, who deleted his Twitter account earlier this month, a grifter.

“‘Talcum X grifts off of black Americans.’ There, fixed that headline for you,” one user wrote in response to the Post report, ‘Talcum X’ being a reference to King’s biracial background. 

“Is the neighborhood predominantly white?” conservative author Stephen L. Miller tweeted, in an apparent reference to another prominent Black Lives Matter figurehead, Patrisse Cullors, who, earlier this year, was revealed to have splashed $3.2 million on homes in mostly white neighborhoods.

While the self-described “trained Marxist” defended her property purchases, the New York branch of BLM called for an investigation into her operations and finances.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!