David Leavitt describes himself as a freelance journalist and claims to work for CBS, Yahoo, the Examiner and AXS. He took to Twitter about two hours after the blast at the Manchester Arena during an Ariana Grande concert. At the time of this writing, 22 people are known dead and more than 50 have been injured. Authorities believe the explosion was a terrorist attack, carried out by a man who went to the box office area as the concert ended and blew himself up. Many of the injuries were caused by people being trampled as the crowd tried to make their way out of the arena. Some of the many children attending the concert were separated from their parents, causing further chaos.
Leavitt apparently saw humour in the blowing up of a venue containing a large number of children. While world leaders, celebrities and others expressed their shock and issued condolences to the dead, Leavitt made a joke. He tweeted there were multiple fatalities and went on to say he too almost died listening to Ariana Grande.
Reaction on social media was swift with users telling him to delete the tweet. The journalist was described as vile and disgusting among other things. Leavitt eventually deleted it and apologized but not before making more jokes. He also tweeted he thought Ariana Grande was something you order at Starbucks. As well, he tweeted “Too soon?” as if his joke might have been funny in the days to come.
Honestly, for over a year I thought an Ariana Grande was something you ordered at Starbucks.
— David Leavitt (@David_Leavitt) May 22, 2017
Leavitt’s excuse for the original tweet was that he did not realize the magnitude of what had happened. Presumably, had the explosion been caused by a gas leak and only a couple of children had been killed, his joke would have been appropriate.
The media companies he claims to work for were just as quick if not quicker to distance themselves from the freelancer. Both CBS and WBZ, Boston’s CBS affiliate, tweeted Leavitt does not work for them. AXS tweeted, “This person does not work for AXS” and went on to say the company does not endorse “this despicable comment.”
Leavitt says he writes about games, travel, fashion and technology. Heavy.com reported fellow gamers believe Leavitt’s career is probably over. They do not believe he was truly remorseful because of the further joke he made about Grande and Starbucks.