‘Racist a**holes’: Bollywood star slams NY hotel staff over ‘fresh off the boat’ comment

A Bollywood star has spoken out about an alleged incident of racism she recently experienced at the hands of a staff member at a New York City hotel. It left Tanishaa Mukerji calling the establishment “the shiftiest place ever.”

The incident is alleged to have occurred on Saturday night, when Mukerji and her friends were partying at the rooftop nightclub of the Jane Hotel in Manhattan’s fashionable West Village. She had been visiting the city for an earlier gala event hosted by the charity CRY America, an organization that aims to help underprivileged children, especially in India.

“I don’t understand what triggered it, as I was polite, but he turned rude,” Mukerji told the Indian daily Mid-Day, recalling the staff member’s behavior. She explained that the employee said her group looked like they were “fresh off the boat” and that they couldn’t speak English.

Describing the remarks as “insulting” and “blatantly racist,” Mukerji said that she and her friends were left shocked by the incident. “It’s traumatic to experience this kind of racism in the US; I have never faced it earlier,” she added.

Attempts to seek recourse from the hotel’s management proved unsuccessful, with Mukerji claiming that they refused to call the police or do anything over the matter. The actress then took to social media, tweeting that the hotel was the “shiftiest place ever,” and that its staff were “racist horrible people.”

A short video recorded by Mukerji and posted to Twitter called the place “ridiculous” and described the people as “racist a**holes.” She said that the video was an attempt to record the incident, but had ended abruptly because the employee stopped her and told her to switch it off.

“It's unfortunate when you experience something like this in a land that stands for rights and liberty,” she said.

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