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Activist Shaun King is at it again.
The social justice activist has a history of putting himself into major stories and has been accused on multiple occasions of being a shameless grifter, so when he inserted himself into the Israel-Palestine story it came as no surprise.
King, however, took things to an entirely different level when he claimed to have helped with the release of two American hostages, who he says have been supporters of his and “protested police violence in America” alongside him.
King claimed to have spoken to the family of Natalie Raanan and her mother, Judith Raanan, and working behind the scenes with the Qatari government to help negotiate their release.
“As I said last week, Natalie and her family have been supporters of mine and have protested police violence in America alongside us,” Kings said. “I am also thankful for the Qatari government for helping to negotiate this. Dozens of us worked frantically behind the scenes to help make this possible.”
Buuuut, there is one problem… the family says they do not know Shaun King and have never heard of him.
“Today we came across bizarre posts on the Instagram page of one Shaun King, who turns out to have millions of followers, who claims that our relative Natalie Raanan supports the anti-Israeli messages he uploads to his page,” a member of the family said in a statement, via TMZ.
“First and foremost, we make it clear that he is lying! Our family does not and did not have anything to do with him, neither directly nor indirectly. Not to him and not to anything he claims to represent.”
Ouch.
King immediately started defending himself by saying it was Natalie’s brother who he spoke to.
🚨STATEMENT from Ben Raanan, brother of Natalie Raanan, the young hostage that was freed by Hamas.
Ben, a longtime supporter of mine, was the American spokesperson for the family and first reached out to me for help on October 9th.
Followed by a THREAD of receipts/records. pic.twitter.com/BL4kRlewYD
— Shaun King (@shaunking) October 21, 2023
This is just the latest example of King making himself the story and having it quickly come unraveled in front of his face. It’s shameless, but that’s what we’ve come to expect from King throughout his social media presence.
The important thing here is that Natalie and Judith Raanan are safe.
