Bay Area woman caught using n-word in viral TikTok: ‘I’m not racist’

(KRON) — Last month, a woman was caught on camera yelling a racial slur toward two Black men in the Sonoma County city of Healdsburg. The video has been viewed by millions of people in a now-viral TikTok video.

The woman at the center of the video reached out to KRON4 and spoke out for the first time since it went viral. In the video, the woman was yelling at two Black men who were moving furniture in her North Bay neighborhood.

The white woman with blonde hair in the video is Caleigh Buchignani. She has now left the state and dyed her hair purple to avoid being recognized.

KRON4 spoke with Buchignani to see what she had to say about the video, which has now been viewed more than 2 million times since being posted on May 23.

“I’m sorry for what I said. I’m sorry I wanted to hurt you, but it’s not because I’m a horrible person, it’s because I have been struggling recently,” she said over Zoom with a new hairdo since the viral video.

Buchignani said she received death threats and had people harass her about what she said in the video. She added that even her parents are getting phone calls.

“I had to change my number, turn off all social media. I had people calling me, giving me death threats,” Buchignani said. “Multiple people a day calling me, harassing me, telling me what a horrible person I am. My parents still get phone calls.”

The video was recorded by a Black man who was moving furniture in Buchignani’s Healdsburg neighborhood. In the video, she yells at one of the movers to move his truck — before walking back to her car and yelling a racial slur.

“I think a simple ‘Can you move your truck, please?’ would have sufficed,” one of the movers told the woman in the video just before she used the racial slur.

KRON4 asked Buchignani if the N-word is something she says often.

“No I do not. I grew up with a lot of Black people, and with the music we listen to, sure, maybe in a different form,” Buchignani said. “Do I say it that way? No, I don’t. It was merely just: he hurt me, and I wanted to hurt him. It had nothing to do with me being racist.”

Keonta Gilmer, who was the mover inside the truck, said acts of racism are nothing new to him. In an interview with KRON4 last week, he said he was glad that this moment was caught on camera.

“Somebody gets held accountable for once. Unfortunately for me, it’s not the first interaction we’ve had in which I’ve been called this slur or dealt with situations like this,” Gilmer said.

Buchignani said she messaged the movers apologizing and asking that the video be taken down, but never got an answer. The message was later screenshotted and put online (see below).

Buchignani said this incident has caused her entire life to turn upside down.

“I have lost my family, my friends, my job, my partner, my stepdaughter. Like I have lost my entire life because my apology wasn’t good enough,” she said.

Buchignani said she has dealt with mental health issues for most of her life — adding she is bipolar, not racist.

“I think it is important that people with mental health (issues) are heard,” Buchignani said. “We don’t talk about this in our society. It’s shameful.”

When given the opportunity to say something directly to the movers, she apologized for taking a bad day out on them.

“So I apologize for anything that I said that hurt you,” Buchignani said, directing the message to the movers. “I hope that in the future, if anything like this happens, you’ll think twice about ruining somebody’s life over a bad day.”

KRON4 has reached out to the two men in the TikTok video to get their reaction to Buchignani’s comments. We will update the story when we hear back.

(Watch KRON4’s exclusive interview with Caleigh Buchignani in the player above)