A woman in an Atlanta Whole Foods received an act of kindness from a shopper who turned out to be rapper and actor Ludacris.
Therra Jaramillo revealed the news in a Facebook post. She said times have been hard since her husband, John, died of brain cancer.
Her friend sent her a US$250 gift card for Whole Foods but after gathering all her items she realized the total would surpass the amount of the gift card.
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She said that a kind stranger in front of her in line offered to pay for her whole grocery bill after her dog food had mistakenly ended up with his order on the conveyor belt.
Jaramillo began to cry as the man paid for her US$375 tab and she shook his hand, hugged him and asked his name.
She said Ludacris told her his name was Chris. When she asked him, “Who are you?” he said, “Just a guy.”
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She wrote: “After he paid … for ALL my stuff ($375 total) he said, ‘They’ll make sure you get all this out to your car, okay? Do you need any help?’ ‘No,’ I said, tears still streaming down my face, ‘But I do need to thank you again.'”
“‘You’re sweet,’ he said softly, looking at me with real kindness in his eyes, ‘You’re nice to rescue dogs.’ ‘I’m lucky,’ I said, ‘You, my friend, are sweet. You’re special. I want to be like you.’ We hugged again,” she wrote in her Facebook post. “He left.”
She said she had no idea who the stranger was until the cashier said, “You know that’s Ludacris, right?”
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She wrote: “‘I love him!’ I yelled and in my hysteria launched into the worst possible white-woman rendition of his hit Rollout (My Business) thus probably undoing all goodwill any person of colour in that line felt for me while watching me sob so gratefully on the Grammy-winner’s shoulder.”
Jaramillo wrote that Ludacris had no idea she had lost her husband to brain cancer and her mother to Hurricane Katrina. She said that she felt like her “candle was out” when they met.
“What Ludacris had no way of knowing is that his quiet kindness and generous gesture came at a moment when my candle was out,” Jaramillo wrote, adding, “Be like Ludacris.”
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“He used his personal light to fire up my own. Isn’t that what we should be doing for each other?” Jaramillo wrote.
She also encouraged readers to pay these positive actions forward, because “you never know a stranger’s full story.”
As of this writing, Ludacris and his publicists have not addressed his random act of kindness.