The Arizona woman who demolished a Target store’s pandemic mask display in a viral video last July says the conspiracy cult known as QAnon fueled her “spectacular” public breakdown.
Melissa Rein Lively, 35, says she descended into the dark world of QAnon’s discredited claims about child trafficking and the coronavirus and was pushed over the edge into the “manic-type episode” that’s received millions of views online.
“I went down a spiral that resulted in my very public implosion,” she told the Daily News in a phone interview Thursday.
“The whole reason I was staying at a hotel the night before the Target outburst was because my husband and I were fighting over QAnon. He was observing me getting sucked in,” she said.
“You need to snap out of it. This is ridiculous. It’s taking over your life. You’re detaching from everyone and everything you love. We’re losing you,” he husband pleaded with her, she recalled.
“There are children involved in this! You have to understand!” she told him before bolting, she said.
The next day she was in the Scottsdale Target and started livestreaming herself as she dismantled the mask display. She says doctors later diagnosed her with “complex post-traumatic stress disorder.”
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