FURIOUS Leona Lewis yesterday told how she and her dad were ordered out of a
shop in a tirade of “racist” slurs.
The X Factor winner and her Guyana-born father Joe were shopping in the London
store when a woman assistant began to hurl abuse.
Leona had been picking out photo frames while her dad waited outside, chatting
on his phone. But a row erupted when he joined his world-famous daughter and
picked up an item, asking if she liked it.
“I went up to the till and asked how much it cost,” said Leona, 24. “But the
woman told us to get out.
“I couldn’t believe it. I asked what she meant and she said, ‘I don’t like the
look of him’. Pointing at my dad, she said, ‘He’s been standing outside my
shop and I want him to go right now. I know why you’re coming in here’.”
Leona admits that she completely lost it at the suggestion they were out to
steal.
The Bleeding Love singer said: “She came up to my face, shouting, ‘Get out or
I’m calling the police’.
“It was disgusting. I just couldn’t believe someone was shouting at me in
front of so many people.
“I was crying and bawling. I said, ‘No. I’ll call the police. This is
racism’.” Leona, who is still recovering after being punched by a crazed fan
during a book signing session two weeks ago in London’s Piccadilly, was so
incensed she finally had to be dragged from the shop by her father.
“Afterwards, I sat outside in the car for ten minutes as he tried to calm me
down,” she recalled.
“I’d never experienced anything like that. Being judged by the colour of your
skin is horrible.”
daniel.sanderson@notw.co.uk
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