A video of a restaurateur destroying an expensive art piece by renowned artist Romero Britto in front of him after he treated them badly has gone viral on social media.
The video, originally shared on TikTok, shows the owner of the restaurant, a woman, holding the artwork, identified as "the Big Apple porcelain piece" while yelling at Brittoat his gallery in Miami, Florida.
Moments later, the woman lifts the artwork and smashes it on the ground before a loud crash is heard as Britto tries to catch the piece reflexively. The Brazilian artist looks at the woman in shock as she continues to scream at him in Portuguese. Watch the video below:
'You Humiliated My Team'
According to Brazilian news outlet Globo, the restaurant owner broke the artwork because the artist was disrespectful and rude to the staff members of her Spanish restaurant located nearby, where the artist and his friends recently dined.
"You went to my restaurant, booked a table for twenty people to have breakfast at a price of 8 dollars, which is cheap, and even asked for a discount," the woman told Britto.
"You humiliated my team, asked to turn down the music, asked them not to speak. That was humiliating," she added before telling him never to visit her establishment again.
'We Admired You As an Artist'
The incident took place during a meet-and-greet event Britto usually hosts at his gallery every month for people who have purchased his work.
After the woman's employees reported Britto's bad behavior to her, she decided to bring the porcelain artwork, which her husband gifted her on her birthday, and smash it in front of Britto.
"We put you on a pedestal, we admired you as an artist, we thought you were a respectable man, but I was wrong," she said in the video.
On the Romero Britto website, the original size piece, similar to the one that was broken, is sold for $ 4,800 while the miniature version costs $360.
