By Chris Bradford
He’s no longer Walmart’s Darling.
Wildly popular influencer Damon Darling, who gained more than 10 million followers for random acts of kindness like buying strangers’ groceries, said he has been banned for life from Walmart — leading some furious admirers to call for a boycott.
Darling posted footage of him being kicked out of an Ohio store — then approached by a cop who told him he had been banned from every Walmart as well as Sam’s Club and Murphy’s gas station.
“That is a life ban from Walmart,” the cop said.
His video showed a Walmart staffer kicking him out — even after Darling was fist-bumped by a woman who told him she was the manager and was happy for him to film there.
“I’m just buying people’s groceries!” Darling protested in the clip that has racked up more than 3.1 million views since Sunday.
He told the staffer who confronted him that a manager told him he was welcome, saying, “I said, ‘Can I buy people’s groceries, bud?’ and she said, ‘Yeah.”
“I’m just helping people’s heart out,” he said of his infamy for leaving shoppers in tears with his generosity. “I just don’t know where I’m gonna go. Walmart is where the people need me. Target don’t need me, man!”
Walmart said in a statement that Darling “has repeatedly violated our policies through disruptive behavior and trespassing, unrelated to any charitable giving,” without stating specifics.
But the ban sparked outrage among many of Darling’s followers, including some saying it was “time to boycott Walmart.”
