Gabrielle Hanson, the MAGA-loving mayoral candidate whose string of recent controversies includes everything from a prostitution-related conviction to her husband’s Speedo-heavy appearance at a Pride parade, has found herself at the center of controversy again—this time after she was recorded ordering a local TV journalist out of a campaign forum.
Jared Sullivan, an observer at Wednesday’s event in Franklin, Tennessee, reportedly recorded Hanson telling a staffer, “No Channel 5. They have to leave.” Meanwhile, just outside the forum, video showed a group of apparent Hanson supporters standing shoulder-to-shoulder to block reporters from entering the event—with one woman even taking a swipe at a journalist as he tried to squeeze by.
While Hanson hasn’t revealed why she wanted Channel 5 out of the room, it’s possibly related to the station’s reporting this week that revealed Hanson’s husband once rocked American flag Speedos—and nothing else, save for a gold chain, glasses, and shoes—to a Pride event in Chicago.
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That photo, from 2008, highlighted Hanson’s hypocrisy on LGBTQ+ events. She first made national headlines this year when she, as a Franklin alderman, tried to block a Pride event from being held at a city-run park because it would bring out drag queens and scantily clothed celebrators she reportedly deemed a threat to “innocent children.”
Hanson’s bid to block the event was unsuccessful, but it earned her street cred among the city’s conservative base. She announced in July that she was running for mayor, notching an endorsement from the city’s Moms For Liberty chapter, a right-wing advocacy organization that’s been labeled an “extremist group” by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Franklin is a wealthy suburb of Nashville that’s home to 85,000 people, including scores of country music stars and their families. Wednesday’s chaos unfolded at a clubhouse located in the ritzy Westhaven neighborhood, where even the cheapest homes cost more than $1 million.
Hanson supporters, who claimed to be Westhaven residents but didn’t publicly identify themselves, got nasty with Channel 5 reporter Phil Williams and his camera crew as they tried to enter the forum for a debate between Hanson and Franklin’s sitting mayor Ken Moore. At one point, a cop intervened and threatened to arrest a woman if she continued to put her hands on the journalists.
“Get your camera out of my face,” the woman snapped.
The officer responded: “Stop touching him, or you’re going to jail. Do you understand?”
The woman said the news crew should leave because they were on private property—despite the reporters saying they’d been invited to attend. The cop quipped back that she was a “grown woman” who needs to “keep your hands to yourself.”
Williams posted to X, formerly known as Twitter, that Hanson’s supporters “became quite agitated and attempted to keep us from entering the room.” He recorded more than seven minutes of the chaos, which included a man backing into him and squealing that he was being assaulted by Williams, despite video showing otherwise.
News Channel 5’s crew eventually made it into the forum, which was equally testy between candidates. Moore, the incumbent, reportedly took shots at Hanson for lying about having inside knowledge about the school shooting at the Covenant School this spring—another bout of controversy Hanson has contended with.
Hanson claimed in May that Audrey Hale, the shooter who gunned down six before being killed by cops, was in a love triangle with staffers at the school. Nashville cops immediately shot that rumor down as false, but Hanson has claimed information proving her assessment will eventually be proved right.
Hanson has been blasted for downplaying lynching and opposing “racial terror” markers in the community. She was also slammed for bizarrely threatening to retaliate against the local airport for supporting a Juneteenth festival, and was criticized this month after it came out that she was arrested in college for promoting prostitution in Texas—a crime she claimed in Wednesday’s forum was only a misdemeanor, but Williams confirmed Friday were actually felony charges.
“When Mayor Moore said Gabrielle Hanson was charged with felonies and she said they were misdemeanors, not surprisingly, she was not telling the truth,” Williams posted to X.
Despite the snowballing controversies, Hanson appears to be embracing the attention. She addressed the chaos of Wednesday’s forum by taking to Facebook to label Williams as an agitator.
“Even though there was some commotion outside the room, courtesy of Phil Williams and his news crew, it didn’t dampen our spirits,” she wrote. “Inside the room, we had an engaging discussion, and both sides tackled some excellent questions with enthusiasm and determination.”
Franklin’s mayoral election is scheduled for Oct. 24, with early voting beginning next week.
