So, this guy cheats on his wife in an Airbnb, and then the Airbnb host threatens to tell the wife if he doesn't pay her some money. Now, the guy—his name is Dr Shawn—and he's an author and a public speaker. One day, Shawn rents an Airbnb because he's going to be in Memphis for a reunion with some of his old friends.
He rents the Airbnb from this woman, Pamela, and it's not cheap—it's over 500 bucks. He tells her he's going to have a small dinner there with some friends over, but none of those friends are supposed to stay the night. Pamela makes him put all their names on a list, and she's got security cameras set up so she can monitor the guest count, so it doesn't turn into like this massive house party.
She's hardcore. They allegedly agree to all this, but then they start fighting. She says Shawn can have some people over, just not the amount of people he wants; otherwise, he has to pay extra.
So anyway, Shawn ends up having like five people over. Then, hours later, Pamela starts getting complaints from the neighbors because, I guess, there's a bunch of loud noises coming from Shawn's unit. She messages Shawn, and she's like, "Okay, you violated the no party rule," and she basically tells him he needs to get the out and find somewhere else to stay.
But Shawn doesn't have anywhere else to go, so they end up working it out, and Shawn ultimately stays in the Airbnb. He leaves in the morning, and everything goes smoothly—until now. Shawn got to stay the night, but ultimately, he isn't too happy with all the drama that occurred while he was there.
So, when Airbnb asks him to leave a review, he gives Pamela one star and requests a refund of $52. Pamela sees this, and she is pissed. She immediately denies the refund.
"Get bent," she's worried she's going to lose her Super Host status on Airbnb—which I guess is a thing. So, she contacts Airbnb and raises hell, and then Airbnb suspends Shawn's account. Now Shawn doesn't want to lose his good standing with Airbnb, so he starts panicking.
He tells Pamela, "Look, just check the security footage from the property, and you'll see there was no party there. " This is where Shawn screws up because Pamela checks the security footage, and Shawn's right—there was no huge party, just the few people he had over. But there was something else: Shawn had gone out for a little bit that night, and at 3:00 a.
m. , he comes back to the Airbnb, but he's not alone—he's with another woman. During all this fighting, Pamela must have looked Shawn up on social media because she knows he's married, and the woman he came back to the Airbnb with is not his wife.
So she texts Shawn a screenshot of the security footage and asks if he's going to tell his wife about the woman he brought home with him or if she should blackmail. She then allegedly threatens to post the footage to YouTube. And I guess Shawn's like, "Whatever.
" But then, two days later, he gets a bill from Airbnb charging him a $960 fine for having extra guests that night and violating house rules. Shawn is like, "Oh hell no, I ain't paying no extra charges. " Surely enough, the next day, Shawn's wife gets an email at her work from an unknown sender with the screenshot of Shawn and the mystery woman he brought back with him that night.
And here's the thing that makes it worse: Dr Shawn is an author, and from what I can see, the last book he published is about his experience helping his wife survive her diagnosis with breast cancer. So it seems like he was at this Airbnb cheating on his wife while she was at home battling cancer. Oh boy.
So anyway, Shawn hears about the email, and he is pissed off. He's like, "I'll see you in court! " He sues Pamela and Airbnb for economic damages, emotional damages, emotional damage.
He claims that they violated his privacy rights and that they damaged his marriage, while Pamela denies that she did anything wrong, and she's countersuing. Now let me be clear about this: this lawsuit hasn't played out in court yet, so all of this is alleged. But good luck to all of them!
Shout out to Memphis!