With three weeks to go until Fayetteville’s Dogwood Festival — without an executive director — two former festival executive directors have become tangled in a legal battle surrounding accusations on social media posts.
Carrie King, the executive director of the festival from April 2006 to August 2018, filed a complaint in Cumberland County Superior Court Tuesday against Malia Kalua Allen, who followed her as the executive director from December 2018 to July 2020.
On Wednesday, Cumberland County Resident Superior Court Judge Robby Hicks granted a temporary restraining order against Allen.
The basis of King’s complaint is dozens of videos Allen posted on her Facebook, TikTok and Instagram accounts in the wake of a March 18 CityView story about the Dogwood Festival’s financial struggles. As of Friday afternoon, at least 31 posts remained on Allen’s social media accounts about the Dogwood Festival, including at least eight posts specifically mentioning King.
According to the terms of Hicks’ order, Allen must:
King’s request for Allen to publish a statement retracting any previous claims was not granted.
The restraining order will expire April 13, with another hearing scheduled for April 15, Hicks’ order states.
What does the complaint say?
According to the complaint, King and Allen were previously coworkers at the Greater Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, which King left to begin working as the executive director for the festival. King is accusing Allen of defamation through libel, communicating threats and civil assaults, the complaint states.
“Following the report from CityView, [Allen] took to various Social Media outlets, including but not limited to: Tiktok, Instagram, Youtube and Facebook, in order to vent her frustrations with the article,” the complaint says. “Initially [Allen’s] posts focused on the Festival Board, and not on the Plaintiff. As [Allen’s] posts became more widely spread, [Allen] shifted her focus from the Board of Directors of the Dogwood Festival in general to the Plaintiff, Carrie King specifically.”
The complaint alleges that Allen made four posts on March 20 and 12 posts on March 21 with false and misleading statements about King. When King took to the comments of Allen’s TikTok page — writing “that [Allen’s] statements were false and misleading” — the situation escalated, with Allen leveling accusations of criminal behavior against King, the complaint says.
On March 22, the complaint says, Allen posted 14 additional videos mentioning King, with an additional 20 videos referencing King posted over the next three days. Three of those videos were titled “Why I’m so mad at Carrie King,” the complaint states.
According to the complaint, Allen’s accusations against King include:
The complaint also alleges that Allen said King would “catch these hands” — popular slang for beating someone up — if she saw her in public. King had to change travel plans because she believed Allen would physically harm her, the complaint says.
In addition to the temporary restraining order that Hicks ultimately granted, the complaint also requests a jury trial, damages for all of King’s claims, a permanent injunction preventing Allen from publishing false statements about King, and reimbursement for the costs of the trial and attorney’s fees.
Jonathan Strange of Fayetteville is representing King, who lives in South Carolina, according to the suit. Allen did not have an attorney listed on court documents, and she was recorded as representing herself at the April 3 hearing about the temporary restraining order.
Neither Strange nor King responded to CityView’s request for comments Friday.
What social media shows
The dozens of posts remaining on Allen’s social media accounts paint a picture of two competing narratives about the Dogwood Festival. Allen alleges racism on the part of the festival’s Board of Directors and accuses the board of destroying the 40-year legacy of the festival through what Allen alleges, and characterizes in her videos and posts, as incompetence and inaction.
“They [the board] are not interested in talent, they are interested in keeping people of color out of their spaces,” Allen wrote in a caption for a March 22 Facebook reel. “I will no longer keep silent about the way that black and brown people are treated by this racist organization who allows inexperience to trump true passion and long standing community advocacy and support.”
In a March 21 Facebook post, Allen urged her followers to reach out to the Fayetteville City Council about the festival’s fate.
“I’ve been waiting for four years for [someone] to speak up,” she wrote. “I’m done being nice. Now, I’m just going to be honest.”
In an hour-long compilation posted to YouTube, Allen discussed her time as the executive director of the festival in a series titled “Who the F Let This Board Ruin the Best Event in Fayetteville.” In that series of videos, Allen alleges:
What’s next?
Allen told CityView on Friday that she will continue to represent herself and will not conduct depositions or seek any evidence in the trial.
“I will not involve anybody else in someone else’s petty attempt to hurt me,” she said. “If anybody else wants to step up and make another one of these civil claims against me, the next time that it happens, I will pull all those records. I will hire a lawyer. I will make sure that all of Dogwood’s finances, all of Dogwood’s board members, all of Dogwood’s former whoever, accountants, whoever’s involved — I will make sure in that situation that I pull every single one of them into the situation.”
She said she first suspected King might sue when a stranger reached out to her on social media after allegedly overhearing a woman screaming about her in a local law office.
“The woman heard her side, then found ‘Malia’ on TikTok and saw my side and decided to reach out to me,” Allen said. “Her statement to me was, ‘I contacted you because I can see that she’s not telling the truth.’”
Screenshots provided to CityView appeared to confirm Allen’s account.
Allen said she wasn’t embarrassed or scared by the lawsuit, adding that she felt it was “pathetic” to focus on her TikToks instead of bettering the festival and the community as a whole.
“I don’t believe I’ve done anything wrong,” she said. “There truly was a time where I truly admired [the] Dogwood Festival. I thought it was the ultimate goal. And when I got there, that was very much shattered very quickly.”
When asked what she would want people to know or understand about the situation, Allen said she wants people to watch her TikToks.
“If you have passed judgment on me without watching everything I said, then you’re not very bright,” she said. “You’re definitely not looking for the truth; you’re looking to castigate me and you want me to be the bad guy. I am not the bad guy.”
As for King’s claim that Allen threatened her physical safety, Allen said she has never assaulted anyone. She said she only stated King could “catch these hands” because she felt King overstepped.
“I am a representative of my family. My dad has a building on [Fort Liberty] named for him,” she said. “Insults and anything of that nature towards the integrity of the Kalua family — no. Absolutely not.”
Allen said she is disappointed that others in the community have not spoken up in support of her.
“I know good and damn well that there are people in this community that know I’m telling the truth,” she said. “Y’all wanna be cowards? Y’all wanna be scared? You wanna hide? Go ahead. I’m not a coward. I’m not scared because I haven’t done anything wrong.”
Reporter Lexi Solomon can be reached at lsolomon@cityviewnc.com or 910-423-6500.
This story was made possible by contributions to CityView News Fund, a 501c3 charitable organization committed to an informed democracy.
