Melissa Rein Lively, a wealthy business owner and Qanon aficionado who made a name for herself with live-streamed rants in which she yelled at store workers and destroyed a mask display while bragging that she had $40,000 Rolex and a Range Rover, is now sorry she praised Qanon. Watch video here.
From AZ Family:
"I got sucked into QAnon because I was desperate, lonely, scared, and searching for answers," she said.
She says people around her were telling her to "snap out of it," but her obsession only grew deeper.
"It's so crazy, this cult ideology it has. The more you read into it, the more you freak out. Somebody in my mental capacity, who was having a traumatic experience, it was the fuel to the fire and set the whole thing off," Lively said.
After the posts and videos went public, Lively said she lost all of her clients, and her business collapsed.
"I was canceled. My business was gone overnight," she said.
Now that she's found a balance, through medication and therapy, she's going back to her PR roots and launching a campaign focused on rehabbing her own image and reputation. It started with a lengthy list of apologies, including a letter to the staff at the Target store.
