Former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was confronted at a bookstore by a Black man who accused him of calling him the N-word when they were students at a Rhode Island prep school and has threatened to sue The Associated Press for running the story, The Hill reports.
Spicer was promoting his new book, The Briefing: Politics, the Press, and the President, on Friday at a book signing in Middletown, Rhode Island, when Alex Lombard got his attention and told him about an incident that took place between the two decades ago at Portsmouth Abbey School.
“You don’t remember that you tried to fight me?” Lombard asked in the video. “But you called me a n**ger first.”
Lombard was approached by security but continued to address Spicer.
“I was 14 then. I was a scared kid then, Sean. I’m not scared to fight you now,” he said.
Spicer’s publicist told The Philadelphia Tribune on Saturday that Lombard made an “outrageous claim” and that Spicer was “taken aback” by the accusation.
Michael Bowe, Spicer’s attorney, said The AP needs to issue a retraction of its story or legal action will be taken.
“[The AP] recklessly republished a categorically false accusation about Sean Spicer,” Bowe said in a statement on Saturday, according to The Hill. “The claim is a lie. Absent an immediate retraction, Mr. Spicer will take legal action Monday.”
Check out a video of the incident below posted by the Newport Daily News.
