Keairra Woods says those of us—myself included—who have vilified her for leaving her friend’s son on a stranger’s front porch have it all the way messed up.
“Everything blew out of proportion,” Keairra Woods told Inside Edition in an exclusive on-camera interview. “I’m getting blamed for everything.”
By now we’ve all seen the video of Woods dropping two-year-old Royal Simmons on someone’s front porch before running to her car and pulling off. Woods had been asked by the boy’s mother to take him to stay with his father while she was in the hospital.
So what part of her leaving the boy on a stranger’s front porch and running to her car do we have wrong? Well, according to Woods, everything.
Woods claims that she did leave the boy on the front porch and run to her car, but that was only after a woman came to the window and told her to leave the boy on the porch.
“I could see her through the glass window,” Woods said. “I’m pretty sure she could see me standing there too.”
Woods notes that she assumed that the woman at the window was the boy’s stepmother and had been warned by the boy’s mother not to engage with the boy’s stepmother as they have a contentious relationship.
According to Woods she was merely trying to do the Simmons mom a favor by dropping him off at his dad’s but was given the wrong address.
“She said, ‘Leave him on the porch.’ I said, ‘Are you sure you want me to leave your child on the porch?’ She said, ‘Yes!’” Woods claims.
Woods says she didn’t stay with the boy because she could see the woman coming to the door.
“I didn’t stay at the door because I seen her coming halfway to the door,” Woods said.
Oh, and about the way that Woods was holding the boy, well, she’s got an answer for that too.
“I was trying to carry him and carry his bags,” she said on holding the child like a folded lawn chair. “It wasn’t intentionally on purpose, like, ‘Let me drag him up here.’ No, I would never do that.”
The boy’s father, who lives next door to where the boy was left was upset when he learned of what happened.
“I am angry! I am upset! Every time I watch the video I get more and more madder,” he told Inside Edition.
Simmons is back with his mother after being placed in Child Protective Services until things were sorted out. Woods just wants people to know she’s not this heartless person that she’s been portrayed as.
“Everybody looking at me like I’m the bad person; I was only helping my friend out by doing her a favor,” Woods said.