Fast & Furious star Tyrese Gibson sues Home Depot for 'racial profiling'

Tyrese Gibson is suing US hardware store Home Depot for over $1million (£790,000) after allegedly being racially profiled in one of its stores.

The Fast & Furious actor, 44, has starred as Roman Pearce in seven of the racing films, alongside Jason Statham, Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, and Vin Diesel.

According to reports, Tyrese has claimed he and two associates were subjected to ‘outrageous discriminatory mistreatment’ during the incident in February.

A lawsuit filed in Los Angeles on August 9 detailed the incident that occurred in a Home Depot store in the US state of Los Angeles earlier this month.

The suit filed by the actor and singer’s legal team states that the store cashier had been ‘very slow’ while scanning items and that ‘the process took 20 minutes’.

It is then stated that the cashier allegedly refused to accept Tyrese’s credit card, which left him unable to complete his transaction.

The How You Gonna Act Like That singer, who was with two friends at the time of the incident, then asked to speak to the manager but was apparently refused, which lead to a ‘heated discussion’ with the cashier.

A statement describes him as ‘one of the most recognisable Black actors and musicians in the United States… who experienced outrageous discriminatory mistreatment.’

‘While Plaintiffs attempted to make an in-store purchase, store clerks purposely interfered with and refused to process the transaction based on their groundless suspicion… arising from their skin colour.’

It continued: ‘Over time [Tyrese] has purchased no less than $1,000,000 (£790,000) worth of materials from the company.’

‘The actions of the cashier and manager were discriminatory based on race and origin. There is no other plausible explanation for the mistreatment of Plaintiffs.’

A video uploaded to YouTube in March, which lasts 15 minutes, apparently shows the aftermath of the incident and depicts Tyrese talking with Home Depot employees.

Tyrese made his first appearance in the Fast & Furious franchise in the second film, 2 Fast 2 Furious – he then reappeared in Fast Five before becoming a member of the main cast.

Metro.co.uk has reached out to Home Depot for comment.

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