A social media sensation who went viral after allegedly being assaulted with a brick is now facing her own scandal: accusations of scamming.
Roda Osman took TikTok by storm, live-reporting outside of a Houston club showing the right side of her face, which was enlarged because of swelling. She claimed that she was attacked by a man who struck her with a brick and sent the internet into an intense “n*ggas ain’t shit” discourse on social media berating the bystanders for not defending her.
Naturally, a GoFundMe was set up to help Osman cover medical expenses, raising over $40,000 from people who flocked to donate after seeing her additional TikTok updates from the hospital.
Upon police investigation into the incident, however, Osman’s story began to unravel.
Houston police officers said when they responded to the report of an aggravated assault, they found Osman, who appeared “intoxicated, hostile and irate,” according to Click2Houston’s report. They said Osman told them a man threw a brick at her face because she refused to give him her phone number and then tried to traffic her by kidnapping her in an Uber.
However, a friend who was present during the alleged attack said she didn’t believe Osman was hit with a brick, but said that she was in an argument with a man in a car ride on the way to another club when Osman yelled, “Ouch, why did you hit me?!” Additionally, surveillance camera footage shows Osman being assaulted not with a brick but with a water bottle wielded by a man identified as Olan Douglas.
Clearly, her story doesn’t seem to be adding up. It’s not the first time either, as the police discovered.
Read more from Click2Houston:
Roda Osman, 33, has been charged with felony theft by deception. According to charging documents, Osman raised at least $40,000 through a fraudulent GoFundMe page she started in September that claimed she was the victim of a similar attack more than three years ago.
During the investigation, detectives said they received a call from Daphne Sutton, a mental health advocate and blogger on TikTok, who believed Osman was conducting a scam because of a similar situation that happened in Minneapolis in 2020. She reportedly provided detectives with another GoFundMe account that was created by or for Osman in 2020 with the same narrative of a “Black man hitting her.” Sutton made TikToks about the incident and said some of Osman’s friends and an ex-roommate also reached out to her to provide a statement.
The report says Osman is currently out on bail after being charged with felony assault and domestic violence over another incident. The Harris County District Attorney’s Office is now asking to place a $50,000 bail on her new charge in connection to the alleged scam.