Slutty Vegan CEO Aisha “Pinky” Cole’s former Bar Vegan employee is taking her to court for allegedly paying her and other employees below federal minimum wage. According to the Bar Vegan owner, that lawsuit led to her Today show appearance being canceled, which was supposed to air Friday.
Cole took to Instagram to discuss her lawsuit and its impact on her image and career, including the removal from the Today show despite her lawyer advising her against it.
“Today Show canceled my segment,” the restaurateur wrote in all caps on her Instagram. She explained further in the caption.
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“This week, I was named in a lawsuit for one of my companies, Bar Vegan, alongside my partners, over alleged unpaid wages from one employee. Again, ALLEGED,” she wrote.
“Up until this point, I was not familiar with this ordeal or the employee because I don’t run day-to-day operations at Bar Vegan,” Cole continued. “But because it’s a SEXY STORY to make a community leader look like a bad guy, this has become headline news.”
Cole expressed her displeasure with the lawsuit, hoping the “negativity” around it doesn’t unravel all the hard work she put into building her name and reputation. But she’s using her platform to ensure her followers and customers know that the lawsuit’s allegations don’t align with her integrity and who she is.
“I’m being removed from an opportunity that I worked my entire life for,” she wrote. “At the end of the day, my name means more to me than any money that could EVER go in my bank account- and I will NEVER let anybody destroy that.”
Cole continued, “To get a call that I was removed from tomorrow’s show because they don’t want to be involved in the storylines is bizarre to me, but all good.”
According to court documents, the Plaintiff, Morgan Georgia, filed the lawsuit on November 11, 2022, for herself and on behalf of the other “servers” and “bartenders” who were paid less than the federal minimum wage.
In the complaint, Georgia claimed that the Defendants Cole and Bar Vegan’s co-owners and operators, Aaron Mattison and Jason Crain, breached the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by paying workers less than the minimum wage for their hours and claimed they failed to compensate for overtime. Furthermore, Georgia wrote in the complaint that Defendants made employees hand over 25% of their tips “for every shift worked” to the restaurant managers and owners.
Georgia also said that the Defendants told employees their tips were used to pay for glassware and other restaurant and bar equipment.
The lawsuit is ongoing.
