A Long Island woman was targeted with thousands of hateful comments and threats because she shares the same name as an actress who drew anger after ranting on TikTok about a New York City cop’s funeral last week.
The Long Islander Jacqueline Michelle Guzman, a 25-year-old small business owner from Huntington, was continuously mistaken for the New York City-based actress Jacqueline Michelle Guzman. The actress posted a video last week complaining about mass road closures in lower Manhattan for the funeral of NYPD officer Jason Rivera. Those who found the video disturbing began lashing threats at the Long Island-based Guzman, but they had the wrong person.
The New York City actress was fired from the theater company she was working for. Meanwhile, the Long Island business owner hoped to set the record straight. She made her own video to show that she is not the one who ranted on TikTok and asked people to stop targeting her.
“This video is to clarify that I am not the Jacqueline Guzman in that awful video,” Guzman, the Huntington business owner, said while tearing up. “I have been receiving multiple calls, threats, and messages. Please stop targeting me and attacking me. I personally cannot handle it.”
The Long Islander posted this clarification video on social media pages for the at-home bakery business she runs with her sister, Cristal Guzman, called Sister Sweets. Their business accounts were also flooded with threats from people who were upset with the actress’s video, which has since been deleted.
Officer Rivera died at 22 after being shot while responding to a domestic violence call in Harlem in January. His funeral procession lined the streets of New York City with thousands of police officers from across the country. The actress Guzman called the showing “ridiculous” and argued that police officers “kill people who are under 22 every single day for no good reason and we don’t shut down the city for them.”
The Long Island Guzman, however, made clear that her name is the only thing tying her to the actress and that she did not agree with her opinions about the police.
“Please note that we have been mistakenly & maliciously tagged in a hateful post,” the Huntington woman and her sister shared in a message on their business’s social media. “We support all law enforcement & our community. We do not align with her messaging, we find it despicable.”
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