‘I JUST LET IT HAPPEN’

Gold Medal Gymnast Suni Lee: A Random Racist Pepper-Sprayed Me

Suni Lee said a car full of people shouting “Ching chong” and “Go back to where you came from” drove by her and her friends as they waited for a cab.

Olympic all-around gold medalist and Dancing with the Stars contestant Suni Lee was pepper-sprayed by a racist passerby in Los Angeles, she said in a new interview. The 18-year-old champion said she and a group of friends, all women of Asian descent, were waiting for an Uber when a car full of people drove close enough for one of the occupants to pepper-spray her on the arm. The people in the car shouted racist taunts at Lee and her friends like “Ching chong” and “Go back to where you came from,” she said. She said the incident made her feel helpless and cry: “I was so mad, but there was nothing I could do or control because they skirted off. I didn’t do anything to them, and having the reputation, it’s so hard because I didn’t want to do anything that could get me into trouble. I just let it happen.” Lee took gold in the all-around gymnastics competition in Tokyo this summer, silver in the team event, and bronze on the uneven bars.