Tyrese Gibson Movies Star Sues Home Depot for Racial Profiling

Tyrese Gib­son, the actor and singer known for his roles in Tyrese Gib­son movies such as Fast and Furi­ous, Trans­form­ers, and Baby Boy, has filed a law­suit against Home Depot for $1 mil­lion in dam­ages. He claims he was racial­ly pro­filed by a cashier at a San Fer­nan­do Val­ley store in February.

The law­suit is based on a video that shows Gib­son hav­ing a heat­ed argu­ment with a cashier who refused to accept his cred­it card for a pur­chase made by his team mem­bers. Gib­son had left the store ear­li­er because he was rec­og­nized by oth­er cus­tomers who want­ed to talk to him about Tyrese Gib­son movies.

The cashier demand­ed to see Gibson’s pho­to ID to ver­i­fy the card, even though he offered to Face­Time her from his car out­side. Gib­son was frus­trat­ed and said he was a loy­al cus­tomer of Home Depot and even knew the CEO of the company.

Gib­son had to go back to the store him­self to com­plete the trans­ac­tion. He believes the cashier dis­crim­i­nat­ed against him because of his race.

In his law­suit, Gib­son asks for $1 mil­lion in dam­ages, which he esti­mates is how much he would spend at Home Depot in his life­time. He also wants addi­tion­al puni­tive damages.

Home Depot said it does not tol­er­ate dis­crim­i­na­tion and that it val­ues diver­si­ty and respect. The com­pa­ny said it tried to con­tact Gib­son to resolve his issues.

The law­suit is still pend­ing. Gibson’s lawyers will have to prove that the cashier vio­lat­ed his rights and did not fol­low the company’s policy.