Melissa Rein Lively’s spiral at an Arizona Target was captured on video for all to see. She was recorded destroying an exhibition mask in early July, something she now says she regrets and is undergoing treatment for mental illness.
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In an exclusive interview with USA TODAY, Rein Lively, CEO and founder of a public relations firm, said that he lost all of his clients and that her husband filed for divorce after the videos of her outrageous ranting went viral.
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“I think mental illness has really been something that has not been addressed as a result of this pandemic,” he said. “Because what happened to me was terrifying and changed my life forever. I felt that I had absolutely no control over my actions.”
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After her manic collapse at the store, Rein Lively said she was taken for a psychiatric evaluation after her husband called the police from home. She said she remained in a mental health center for more than a week.
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Conflicts in companies, from Costco to merchant Joe, over the request to wear masks have exploded in recent weeks, seen in viral videos of buyer rants, as coronavirus cases increase.
At the Florida Costco Wholesale Club in late June, Daniel Maples was caught in a viral video that showed him yelling at another customer during a discussion about facial masks. Maples said the video did not show the story and that since it went viral, he lost his job and received hundreds of threatening text messages, emails and voice messages.
For some who have watched the videos, which have come in rapid succession and show people combative by masks or fanning a racially charged exchange, routine follow-up apologies may fail amid the consequences of getting caught misbehaving in public. .
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Like Maples, Rein Lively said he received threatening messages after his trip to Target on July 4 in Scottsdale, Arizona. He said he will go to a treatment program next week and wanted to share his story so that others who are struggling “know they are not alone in dealing with mental illness.”
© Kelly Tyko, USA TODAY
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Experts say that for many people the negative impacts on mental health will last longer than current crises. Research suggests that the extreme stress caused by these events may even lead to longer-term psychiatric disorders. A recent study estimates that deaths from alcohol, drug and suicide overdoses as people suffer amid the social isolation imposed by the pandemic could reach 150,000.
Rein Lively shared the video of his mask removal at Target on his social media accounts, but it went viral when Twitter user @RexChapman posted it and has seen more than 10.1 million views as of Wednesday night 7/29 . In the video, she shows off her Rolex watch and stated that it was worth $ 40,000.
In addition to working to regain his mental health, he says he knows he has work to do to restore his professional reputation.
“It is going to take me a long time to rebuild people’s trust, you know, while I get my life and career back,” he said. “I love what I do and I am passionate about what I do and I am going to fight this.”
This woman in Scottsdale, Arizona was very upset with Target for selling facial masks. So annoying, in fact, that she attacked her screen … pic.twitter.com/ye9LiDz0JH
– Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) July 5, 2020
The extreme stress of the pandemic, he said, triggered what he called a “manic bipolar episode.”
“I can absolutely see that the way I acted was incredibly inappropriate, not to mention the lack of class and completely out of place because of the way I behave, professionally and personally,” he said.
Target had said in a statement to USA TODAY in early July that “a guest looted” the mask display at one of its Scottsdale stores and the Salt River Police Department was called in for “additional support.”
Rein Lively said he collected all the masks and put them in a cart and offered to buy them, but was told he couldn’t.
Although the police spoke to her at Target and let her go, when she got home, she said, her husband called the police out of concern about her mental state. She broadcast the exchange live on Instagram. It was in that video that she told officers she had connections at the White House, asked them to call President Trump, and said she was a QAnon spokeswoman.
“Everything I was doing was funny and sarcastic, and now I realize that the world obviously took everything I was saying seriously as if I really believed that,” he told USA TODAY. “They didn’t arrest me, they took me to a mental health evaluation. That was something that really opened my eyes to this whole process.”
Her husband Jared Lively told Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network, that she began receiving text messages from friends who had seen the Target video on Instagram on July 4.
He said he feared it was an escalation of a decrease in days in his wife’s mental health and the continuation of a problem that he said had manifested the previous year.
“There are many people who have a manic episode like this,” Jared Lively said during an interview with the Republic, noting that he had received death threats. “They just don’t film it.”
Target will begin requiring buyers across the country to wear masks starting Saturday. Rein Lively said he now wears masks.
“I certainly want to respect others in the community and follow the mandates,” he said. “I understand that you know that masks are necessary for businesses to continue operating, which for me was obviously, you know, my biggest frustration is all of this.”
Contributors: Dalvin Brown, Alia E. Dastagir and Jayne O’Donnell, USA TODAY; Richard Ruelas, Republic of Arizona; Jake Allen, Fort Myers News-Press
Follow USA TODAY reporter Kelly Tyko on Twitter: @KellyTyko
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: An Arizona woman who destroyed the Target mask screen in a viral video says she regrets the behavior.
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