Matthew Wilson
A Texas woman is dismayed to learn that she’s at the center of a fake viral story involving Olive Garden. She’s been helpless to stop the spread of the story.
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What Happened: Speaking with Chrom, Megan Ashlee Davis says she is a victim of lies. The story goes like this. A waitress at Olive Garden threw breadsticks at customers after being angry about not receiving a tip. The viral story even included a mugshot of Davis to sell its legitimacy.
The only problem is that Davis has never worked at Olive Garden and the story is completely fake. Davis, who is a student in College Station, Texas, is trying to put a stop to it.
The Facebook account “Pure videos” created the fake story. It’s been seen by millions and has more than 12,000 shares. The story was copied and shared on multiple accounts after that. The post didn’t include Davis’s real name or city (taking place in Saint Louis). But it did include her real mugshot.
- “It’s probably like my worst nightmare coming to reality,” Davis told Chron. “People are making very inappropriate comments or AI-generated things with my mug shot.”
- “People are disgusting out there—and scary,” Davis added.
Olive Garden Story
Olive Garden: The mugshot is indeed real. But it wasn’t the crime. Davis revealed that she was arrested for public intoxication back in August. She had been struggling with the death of her mother.
- “I was still very like hurt and angry and I just didn’t know,” Davis said. “I guess at the time I thought I was OK and then I started drinking whatever, went to jail, and that was really embarrassing itself.”
So the Olive Garden story keeps bringing up a very real and very painful memory for Davis. She’s tried to get Facebook to take it down.
- “I’m trying to do what I can and I’ve tried talking to Facebook by reporting the post and having my friends report the posts and it’s not being taken down.”
- But Facebook says the post doesn’t violate its policies.
- “It’s still there and more content is being created, more things are being said, and I just feel overlooked and unseen and unheard.”
Meanwhile, Olive Garden has released a statement about the incident. “This person does not work for Olive Garden, and the incident described never occurred. The page that originally shared this false story has posted similar hoaxes involving multiple brands.”
