‘Go to Hell!’: White Ohio Woman Who Wrongfully Accused Black Man of Following Her After She Ran Screaming from His Porch Tearful Apology Video Falls Flat After Claims She’s the ‘Furthest Thing from a Racist’
Jan 20, 2025
Michelle Bishop, an Ohio woman who created a furor when a video showing her questioning a Black homeowner whether he actually lived in their wealthy neighborhood, then fled screaming when he confirmed that he did, offered her side of the story Saturday in a tear-filled video absent of apologies.
“Did I overreact? No, I don’t think,” said Bishop, a fitness instructor who spoke on Facebook Saturday night, four days after a video of the Nov. 19 incident that catapulted her into the public spotlight went viral.
She claims the Black resident, a real estate developer who has thus far remained silent about what Bishop described as “a massive understanding,” followed her slowly in his vehicle through the neighborhood where they both live while she was out running with her two children, one in a stroller.
Michelle Bishop, right, made an apology video after accusing Mike Jenkins, left, of following her and trespassing on his own property. (Photos: Facebook)
As the Black homeowner, Mike Jenkins would later tell Bishop, he had slowed down in his truck to look at his Christmas lights.
Bishop had gone to the front door of Jenkins’ house, pretending it was hers, she said, in hopes of shaking him. At this point, he’s backed into his driveway, and after Jenkins informs Bishop he lives there, she tells him, “I don’t believe that.”
She tells her kids to run and follows them, screaming, “Help!”
“I run as fast as I can, screaming at the top of my lungs,” Bishop recalled. “I’ve never, ever screamed as loud as I screamed.”
She said she thought the man in the truck was white, which registered as odd to some who viewed the video since the Black owner has locs.
“I have never felt the fear that I had of just pulling up to the house,” Bishop said. “I never went into fight or flight like that before.”
She claims the homeowner spoke in a tone that “wasn’t super-friendly,” though in the video, recorded on the Black developer’s doorbell cam, he doesn’t sound the least bit threatening.
“I heard words that said, ‘Can I help you with anything?'” Bishop recalled.
Bishop broke down in tears in the video on Saturday as she noted she apologized twice to the homeowner and his wife.
“They did not take my apology,” Bishop said.
Her second apology ended with Bishop telling him, “Please don’t say you’re upset with me” — a hint that she wasn’t sorry about how she reacted but instead by how she might be perceived.
She all but confirms this in Saturday’s video, failing to understand why people might be upset by her reaction.
“There was never a racist intent,” Bishop said. “What I will apologize for is sharing the story of me being scared.”
She cited a previous incident in Houston, where, she alleges, she was stalked and followed home by a registered sex offender. And another, during her childhood, when a man “loudly banged” on her family’s front door.
Since the video went viral last week, Bishop said she’s been inundated on social media and on her cellphone by people calling her “a racist pig,” among other things.
“I will not apologize for making a racist remark,” Bishop said. “I’m the furthest thing from a racist.”
She said she believes “there’s an agenda going on,” and she is the target.
“I don’t think I’m in a position to try and win hearts anymore,” Bishop said, adding, “I’m not trying to play the victim.”
Public sentiment does not appear to be on her side.
“She’s not crying because she’s sorry, she’s crying because of the backlash she’s receiving! Girl, bye,” wrote one viewer on Instagram.
Added another, “At first, she has the audacity to weaponize her whiteness. And then like clockwork, here come the white tears. And of course defending these actions. Go to hell… .”
‘Go to Hell!’: White Ohio Woman Who Wrongfully Accused Black Man of Following Her After She Ran Screaming from His Porch Tearful Apology Video Falls Flat After Claims She’s the ‘Furthest Thing from a Racist’