A blind guy has spoken out about the unpleasant incident in which he was charged with gazing at a female gymgoer.
Pete Gustin, a voice actor and prominent figure on social media, is well-known online for overcoming his vision disability.
He performs both on and off-screen as an actor and also likes to wakeboard, skateboard, and surf.
Even though Gustin has 1.29 million YouTube subscribers, he may not always be easy to spot when he’s going about his everyday business at the gym.
The social media celebrity recalls one situation where a woman accused him of predatory behavior since she didn’t know he was blind in a TikTok video he made about nine months ago.
He explained at the start of the video: “I’m blind. If you know what those two words mean, then you’re much smarter than the girl who was screaming at me at the gym.”
“I’m standing there doing a tricep pushdown exercise and since I can’t see I’m just kind of staring off into space doing my thing. Half-way through a set I start hearing footsteps that seem like they’re coming in my direction getting closer and closer,” Gustin described.
“Until all of a sudden, this woman is right up in my face going ‘I didn’t come here to be stared at,” he recalled.
The voice actor made an effort to clarify, saying: “‘Ohhhh, I’m sorry, I’m blind’.” The woman reacted by expressing that she didn’t care and requesting him to stop staring again, even though this may have been a satisfactory explanation for many others.
The woman walked off after screaming at Gustin and came back moments later with the gym manager.
The manager still sided with the woman even after Gustin gave them his ID card, which verifies that he is blind. The actor claims they responded as follows: “Okay, but you still can’t make other gym members uncomfortable by looking at them.”
Gustin presented the tale in a puzzled TikTok under the title: “I was not staring at you. I promise,” which has racked up over 18 million views.
Many viewers laughed at Gustin’s narrative, while some were more interested in discovering why they knew his voice. The voice actor has appeared on programs from CBS, Fox News, ESPN, NFL, Cartoon Network, Fox, Comedy Central, and Major League Baseball, among others.