Is it a hoax? Questions over story of girl, 3, 'thrown out' of KFC for scaring customers
Claims have surfaced that the story of a disfigured girl who was asked to leave a fast food outlet because of her face, may be made up
Did they make it up? A US family claimed that a 3-year-old girl, who'd been scarred by a dog attack, was asked to leave a KFC restaurant because her face was upsetting other customers.
Her family took to Facebook to voice their distress and, once the understandable social-media outrage took hold, KFC apologised and offered to pay $30,000 to towards the little girl's medical bills. More than $100,000 has also been raised by well-wishers who have donated money to a crowdfunding website.
However, an anonymous source supposedly close to the incident told a local newspaper that there's no evidence of the girl and her grandmother on CCTV footage from that day. The source also questioned whether the food that the grandmother claimed to have ordered was on the menu that day.
Grandmother Kelly Mullins had described the alleged incident to US news channel WAPT-TV.
"I ordered a large sweet tea and her some mashed potatoes and gravy because she was hungry," Kelly told . "She was on a feeding tube at the time but I figured she could just swallow them.
"But they said, ‘We have to ask you to leave because her face is disrupting our customers."
Kelly added that Victoria understood exactly what they said – and cried all the way home.
Victoria Wilcher (above) had been left severely injured when 3 pitbulls burst into her grandfather’s trailer in Mississippi, and attacked her. She broke her jaw, nose and cheekbones, lost her right eye and, in the weeks since the attack, has had to have several operations to repair the damage to her face.
Victoria and her grandmother had visited a KFC in Jackson, Mississippi, for a snack after one of Victoria's many doctor's appointments.
Afterwards, Victoria's family posted on the Victoria's Victories Facebook page they'd set up to raise money for her medical expenses. "Does this face look scary to you?" the post read, alongside a pic of Victoria wearing her sparkly pink eyepatch. "I personally will never step foot in another KFC again and will be personally writing the CEO."
Despite KFC's apology – "The entire KFC family is behind Victoria," said company spokesman Rick Maynard – Kelly says her granddaughter is now very self-conscious about her looks.
"She won’t even look in the mirror anymore," she said. "She’s 3 years old and she’s embarrassed about what she looks like."
The family has denied the claims that this is a hoax and have asked for people not to judge them until KFC announce the result of their investigation.
“I promise it’s not a hoax," the family FB post says. "I never thought any of this would blow up the way it has.”
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