Photo: Tetra images RF
U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Sha’Neal Fox-Jones is setting the record straight on a viral video that showed her fighting off a white man who tried to choke her outside a nightclub.
In a video shared last month, Fox-Jones appeared to wrestle a man to the ground and hit him after he allegedly attempted to choke her. Video showed the man tapping the ground in apparent surrender following the altercation. Social media users claimed that Fox-Jones had rejected the man's kiss, prompting the viral altercation.
However, Fox-Jones, who goes by Sha’Neal SoLovely on TikTok, disputed this narrative in a statement.
“The young man was not trying to kiss me,” she said in a video shared on Sunday (August 3). “He was not getting rejected. He had got into an altercation previously and was kicked out. … I said, you can’t get back in — you choked somebody.”
Fox-Jones said she intervened in the situation after the man tried to re-enter the club after attacking another patron. When she stepped in, the man got aggressive towards her, appearing to try to snap her neck.
The sergeant confirmed that she gave a statement to the police. Fox-Jones noted that the situation has left her with anxiety and trauma.
“The first two weeks were really hard. I truly felt traumatized,” she said. “I was having nightmares… I want 2025 to be over. This is a lot.”
Social media users flooded Fox-Jones' video with messages of support.
"You didn’t go viral for fighting, you went viral for surviving! And this will inspire others to save themselves too. We needed a hero baddie so bad rn actually😭," one TikTok user said.
"I am happy you are still here with us. Too many black women are getting harmed and even unalived and no one helps us. I hope you are okay fr," another wrote.
"I'm so sorry you dealt with that and i'm glad you're physically ok. hope you're feeling ok too. we're all so proud of you," a third person said.
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