Following an incident at Cleveland’s Barley House on Saturday night in which Alissa Violet and her boyfriend Ricky Banks suffered bruises, the two YouTube stars have incited an online attack against the bar.
The details of what happened Saturday night are unclear, but Violet and Banks were involved in an altercation with bouncers and two women whom Violet was filming, according to The Daily Beast. That night, Violet posted a video to her fans, known as the “cloutgang,” with a swollen eye.
Since that night, Violet’s fans have forced the bar’s website and its Yelp page offline, and have sent threatening messages to Barley House employees and random Cleveland residents mistakenly implicated in the incident.
Dolores Mack, a Barley House employee misidentified as one of the women who fought Violet, received thousands of hateful comments on her Instagram. A Cleveland man named Steve Donaldson Jr., who was at home and not the Barley House on Saturday night, was also misidentified, and received death threats from Violet’s fans over text. “Her fans looked up old addresses of ours, saying we should watch our back,” said Donaldson’s sister, Courtney, according to The Daily Beast.
The Barley House conducted an internal investigation and concluded that its employees had done no wrong. “We have also come to the conclusion that Ricky and Alissa are instigators, liars, and manipulators,” reads a statement on the bar’s Facebook page.
Violet is among YouTube’s biggest young stars, with a following of close to three million subscribers. Both the team of Violet and Banks and representatives from the Barley House have said they are pressing charges.
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