Bravo star Bria Fleming is opening up about a frightening incident she recently had with police in Cannes, France.
Sitting down for an interview on Page Six‘s Virtual Reali-Tea podcast, Fleming, who stars on Bravo’s reality show Summer House: Martha’s Vineyard, said she was taken into custody on May 20 along with her younger sister. Fleming and her German boyfriend Simon Marco were in France at that time to celebrate their one-year anniversary. But the trip turned into a nightmare when a woman called the police and said Fleming and her sister robbed her at a Zara store.
Fleming said she never had any interaction with the woman, but she and her sister were still taken to a French police station filled with male inmates and strip-searched multiple times.
“Every country’s different when you’re under arrest and I’m like, ‘I don’t know what the procedure is here.’ … So I thought we were going to get either beat up, raped and I just couldn’t feel my heart,” Fleming said on the podcast, sitting alongside Marco. “And I was just crying like, ‘Why are you guys doing this?’ And they were like, ‘Shh, don’t talk, don’t talk.'”
The Bravo star added that police “did a lot of illegal corrupted stuff.”
She went on to she received “a butt naked strip search to the crack, like, ‘Bend over, let’s see.’ Took off my earrings, my extensions,” she said. “Then they did a drug and alcohol testing down there. They weren’t supposed to do that as well.”
The 28-year-old also said there were no translators available at the police station. “We weren’t able to call our family and let [them] know. My sister had her phone and she snuck the location to Simon,” she said. “So no one would have known and that’s why I was calling it a kidnap because [the police] took us off the street, told me a lady said I robbed her and I am a suspect.”
Marco said he went crazy when he arrived at the station. “One detective came out and he lived in Germany for six years so he could speak German. And then I explained … that she’s on TV, that she has money, that she doesn’t have to steal from anyone,” he told Page Six. “And then he’s like, ‘Obviously, it’s a misunderstanding.’ And then he apologized to me.”
Fleming said she was released after signing a paper in French, which she didn’t fully understand. “They said they wouldn’t let me leave unless I signed it,” Fleming said. “And they didn’t give me the police report, they said I’m not entitled to that. They wouldn’t give me the paper that I signed. They were just like, ‘Bye.'”
Marco suspects that racism was a factor in the incident. “I told them this is obviously racial profiling. Like, I don’t want to make any claims at this point what could be the case,” he said. “I’m just saying this is completely wrong. The police can come … and take you into custody and strip you butt naked without giving you your rights, so that’s completely corrupt.”
Fleming and her sister are now seeking justice. “We got a good lawyer. And we involved the U.S. consulate and we called the embassy and mayor of Cannes,” Fleming said. “So all these people are very disappointed that this happened and now they’re launching a big investigation.”
As one of the stars of Summer House: Martha’s Vineyard, Fleming joins a group of friends who are tangled in dramatic relationships and situations while embarking on an island getaway. Stars Jordan Emanuel, Preston Mitchum and Amir Lancaster teased the seaosn in a recent interview with Blavity’s Shadow and Act. “You’re going to see a lot of relationships forming, some of them falling apart, learning how to navigate living with so many other people and personalities,” Emanuel said. “That’s real and fun. We have some fun too. It’s not always stressful.”
Mitchum, who is the only openly gay Black man among the stars, explained why the show is especially vital for Black people. “I think as Black folks, we’re taught to shrink ourselves a lot,” he said. “One of the expressions I also hate when people are like, ‘Oh, stay humble.’ I’m like, ‘What does that even mean?’ Because only Black people are told to stay humble. I’m just really big on what our language means when people say it to us, including some of us who may have adopted certain languages. I think it’s so important to take the space, especially when you may be the only person in the room who may feel a way. Or maybe you’re not, and you may just be the person who will vocalize it.”
The show takes place at Martha’s Vineyard, an island located south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts. According to Bravo’s website, Black vacationers have been visiting Martha’s Vineyard for over 100 years. The historic site is known as one of the first beach destinations where Black people can vacation and purchase property.
