Shaun King, a former pastor who recently converted to Islam, was disinvited Thursday from a Ramadan fundraising dinner due to his controversial history, the Daily Mail reported.
King got into recent controversy the day after his conversion to Islam — which was done out of a professed sense of “solidarity” with Palestine — he announced a multi-day speaking circuit that sold $1,000 VIP tickets, according to the outlet. (RELATED: Scandal-Ridden BLM Activist Shaun King Will Pay $75,000 For Calling DA Candidate A ‘Real-Life Supervillain’)
King claimed all proceeds from his speaking tour would go to Palestinian issues, the Daily Mail reported.
When the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) Minnesota branch had advertised King as a “Civil Rights Icon” and a “Keynote Speaker” for their Ramadan fundraising dinner, it engendered online backlash, according to the outlet. “Do not let CAIR be tainted by association with this grifter,” one user reportedly wrote.
“People familiar with his history know he’s a prolific scam artist. I wouldn’t associate with him, especially for any fundraiser,” another posted, the Daily Mail reported.
The backlash had a discernible effect on CAIR who tweeted out Thursday that King had been disinvited. “We have heard concerns expressed—directly and indirectly—by our community regarding Shaun King being the keynote at your Annual Iftar Fundraiser. We have made the decision to not have Shaun King as the keynote speaker for our upcoming annual fundraising dinner,” CAIR MN wrote.
We have heard concerns expressed—directly and indirectly—by our community regarding Shaun King being the keynote at your Annual Iftar Fundraiser. We have made the decision to not have Shaun King as the keynote speaker for our upcoming annual fundraising dinner. pic.twitter.com/iqn7nT7riO
— CAIR MN (@CAIRMN) March 21, 2024
The organization also appears to have deleted the post announcing King’s presence at the dinner. This is not King’s first controversy.
King has also been accused of lying when he claimed that he had been involved in freeing two American hostages from Hamas captivity and that the hostage family was supportive of him, according to TMZ. The family of the hostages reportedly disputed his account.
“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,” the family of the hostages told TMZ.
Critics of King point toward what they see as a disconnect between his opportunistic social activism on the one hand and his lavish spending of donor cash on luxury items on the other. A mother of a Cleveland boy killed by police accused King of co-opting her son’s death into a self-serving money operation back in June 2021, the New York Post reported. “I don’t understand how you sleep at night,” the mother reportedly wrote about King.