The internet made her famous for trashing a Scottsdale Target's mask display. The truth is more complicated - AZCentral.com

kuangkunang.blogspot.com

Richard Ruelas Arizona Republic

Published 6:38 PM EDT Jul 8, 2020

To the world, she was the Rolex watch-wearing “Karen,” the blond woman who trashed a display of masks at a Target store in Scottsdale and was later taken into custody by police officers.

But to one man, she was his wife who was dealing with mental illness.

Melissa Rein Lively, who runs a public relations firm, livestreamed herself at a Target on July 4, throwing the masks onto the floor while profanely shouting that she was done with the disease and masks.

Further scrutiny of her social media posts that weekend showed rantings about politics, conspiracy theories and use of the N-word.

Her husband, Jared Lively, started getting text messages from friends who had seen the Target video on Instagram that Independence Day morning. He feared it was an escalation of a days-long decline in his wife’s mental health and a continuation of a problem that he said had manifested itself the year before.

His wife showed up at the home he had kicked her out of three days before. He called police.

She livestreamed as Scottsdale police arrived and took her into custody. Officers would take her for a mental health evaluation. On Tuesday, it appeared she was still in a facility of some sort.

At the same time, her video was ping-ponging around social media, becoming something for strangers to view, mock and pass judgment on.

“There’s a lot of people that have a manic episode like this,” Jared Lively said during a phone interview on Tuesday. “They just don’t film it.”

That his wife filmed it and posted it online made the Target encounter a video to be consumed. It became the latest in the parade of videos that millions watch in a matter of hours. By the next day, most are largely forgotten, replaced by the next sensational encounter.

Rein Lively’s had become part of a particular genre of video: a “Karen.”

The name has been attached to a perceived type of white woman who feels her concerns — perhaps petty or self-centered — need to be addressed. The kind of person who demands an employee summon their manager so her complaint can be dealt with.

Rein Lively’s trashing of the mask display fit that type. She felt masks were unnecessary, so no one should wear a mask.

It fit with other videos of people losing their temper in stores that required face-coverings.

But Rein Lively’s videos told a larger story.

As her online popularity spread, people found her other recent rantings on Twitter and Instagram.

In them, she claimed to be the spokesperson for Q, a mysterious figure at the center of an online conspiracy theory. Q is said to be exposing nefarious goings-on and crimes by high-ranking officials in past presidential administrations. Her claims led her to be dubbed, by some internet wags, as the "QAnon Karen."

On several videos, she also repeatedly used the N-word. In one video, she repeated the word in a torrent.

To Jared Lively, it was all evidence of a mental breakdown, not entertainment to be commented upon.

“(People) want drama,” he said. “They want to make people feel bad. I don’t understand it.”

A Black associate responds

The crisis either came quickly or had been well-hidden in the weeks leading up to it.

In early June, Adrienne Bryant hosted a Black economic forum at her commercial real estate office that was organized by Rein Lively. Bryant, who said she had experience with a family member dealing with mental health issues, said she saw no signs of trouble at that event.

“I feel real sad for what she’s enduring from a mental health standpoint,” Bryant said Tuesday.

But, she said, the mental issues don’t explain, or excuse, all of Rein Lively’s behavior over the past week and beyond. As a Black woman, she said she was offended as friends pointed out to her a years-old posting where Rein Lively had used the N-word, seeming to start the habit.

In late June, Bryant said she saw a photo Rein Lively posted of a woman wearing a burqa. “Fine. I give up,” Rein Lively posted. “I’ll wear the damn mask.”

Bryant posted that she didn’t find the photo funny and the comments devolved quickly. Bryant posted that she was seeing Rein Lively’s true colors.

She said she cut the few professional ties she had with her that day.

Still, she said, Rein Lively, on her Brand Consortium website, had listed Bryant Commercial Real Estate as a client. And as Rein Lively gained viral fame, people started peppering Bryant’s email and Facebook pages with messages asking how her company could work with such a person.

Bryant herself is reassessing her interactions with Rein Lively, trying to determine what behavior was caused by mental illness and what was a reflection of her true self.

“I don’t want to discount mental health,” Bryant said. “But mental health is not her escape of who she is as a conscious being.”

Bryant noted videos Rein Lively posted to Instagram on Tuesday, videos of her asking for money and relishing the news coverage her Target incident had garnered.

The grandiose nature of those posts chipped away at the sympathy Bryant had for the woman. "She knows what she's doing," Bryant said.

The online commentators also turned their wrath on Rein Lively's husband, who played a bit role in his wife’s video at their home. He could be seen standing in the garage watching officers speak with his wife.

“They want to be nasty,” Jared Lively said. “Who chooses to be nasty? Attack the husband who’s trying to help her? Attack everyone? How is that going to help anyone?”

By Tuesday, Jared Lively said the death threats and mean messages to him had largely stopped, as if Arizona and the nation had moved on to the next story. He expressed apprehension about discussing it further with a reporter since it would bring renewed attention to the incident.

But, he said, he thought people should know the fuller story.

DIVISIONS: Wearing a mask, or not wearing one, is becoming a political statement

An earlier evaluation

In March 2019, Melissa Rein Lively had started a public feud with a public relations firm that used to employ her. Videos she made, with accusations of unethical behavior, were covered by Phoenix New Times, an alternative weekly.

But, Jared Lively said, his wife was experiencing mental health problems at home.

No one had a camera running during those incidents.

Jared Lively called police and asked that his wife be mentally evaluated. He said his wife got the help she needed and appeared to be back on track.

But, he said, as the months passed, she stopped following the course of treatment doctors had prescribed.

Then came the COVID-19 induced shutdown of the state’s economy. Rein Lively lost many of her clients, as public relations seemed an unnecessary expense, Jared Lively said.

But his wife didn’t use the time to relax, he said. Instead, he said, it appeared she started to spend a lot of time online and stumbled into the world of QAnon.

FAQ: 8 things to know about wearing a mask in Maricopa County

Jared Lively said his wife would talk a bit about QAnon and other assorted theories about the COVID-19 pandemic. But, he said, she seemed to have just a passing curiosity.

If anything, he said, his wife took the virus extremely seriously. She was fastidious about disinfecting groceries, for example, and wore a face mask.

“I don’t know what triggered her in the other direction,” Jared Lively said.

In an interview with a Republic reporter last week, Rein Lively made several pronouncements, including saying she had been hired as spokesperson for the Q network.

Jared Lively said after that interview, which he overheard, he spoke with his wife and cautioned her that she was showing signs of mental illness again.

But she told him that all was well. And that her predictions of a massive Q-related event would come to pass on the Fourth of July.

He told her to leave the house. He said he thought doing so would snap her out of it. At worst, he figured, she would spend one night away from him in a hotel, miss her dogs and her husband and come home.

Instead, he said, she bounced from resort to resort in the Paradise Valley and Scottsdale area for the next three nights.

Jared Lively stopped looking at his wife’s Instagram page. On Saturday morning, friends alerted him to the video his wife posted throwing down masks.

As Target employees approached her and asked her to stop, she asked why.

“You let everyone else do it,” she said. It was a seeming reference to the ransacking of a Target in Minneapolis during the protests surrounding the death of George Floyd, who died after being held down by officers, including one who held his knee on his neck.

“I can’t do it cause I’m a blond white woman?" Rein Lively asked on the video.

She showed off her Rolex to the camera and profanely declared it worth $40,000.

That video would eventually garner 6.5 million views. Stories about it would be written by the New York Post, the New York Daily News, TMZ and the Daily Mail of London.

Rein Lively left the store and called an Uber that picked her up in the Target parking lot.

Both her husband and a friend contacted Paradise Valley police and asked them to check on her well-being at the Montelucia resort, where she was staying, a department spokesperson said. The officer, after talking with her, determined she was fine, the spokesperson said.

Hours later, Jared Lively heard his wife enter their home. He called Scottsdale police. Officers arrived and interviewed both the husband and the wife.

Rein Lively livestreamed the last few minutes of her talk with police. In the video, Rein Lively told officers she had connections at the White House and asked officers to call President Trump. She repeated her assertion that she was a spokesperson for QAnon.

At one point, according to the video, one officer said to his colleagues, “I think we have enough.” There’s mention of a behavioral health center.

Rein Lively has been held in a facility since.

Jared Lively said he would seek a divorce, ending their 15-year relationship.

But, he said he hoped his wife got the help she needed.