{"id":763995,"date":"2026-07-15T08:25:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T08:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/763995\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T08:25:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T08:25:15","slug":"hilton-fires-employee-who-sent-racist-message-via-social-media-to-aces-star-chelsea-gray-wnba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/763995\/","title":{"rendered":"Hilton fires employee who sent racist message via social media to Aces star Chelsea Gray | WNBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hilton Grand Vacations has fired an employee who sent a racial slur via social media to Las Vegas Aces guard Chelsea Gray following the team\u2019s 109-75 loss to the Indiana Fever on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old Gray posted the message she received that included a racial slur on her Instagram story on Monday. Hilton Grand Vacations confirmed to the Associated Press on Tuesday that the individual who messaged Gray is no longer employed with Hilton Grand Vacations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe person responsible for posting this information is no longer with the company,\u201d Hilton Grand Vacations said in a statement. \u201cHis behavior was in violation of multiple company policies and does not reflect our company\u2019s values in any way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Aces did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In March, the WNBA<\/a> and its players\u2019 union agreed on a transformational new collective bargaining agreement. It sought to enhance security, improve technological support, reinforce mental health resources, enforce a stronger fan code of conduct and protect players through an anti-hate campaign.<\/p>\n

But, the harassment Gray faced comes in the aftermath of Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas saying she also received racial slurs. Thomas said she received death threats as well<\/a> following her one-game suspension after she made contact with her fist to Caitlin Clark\u2019s throat during a 111-109 win against the Fever.<\/p>\n

Thomas also criticized WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert for not doing more to protect the league\u2019s players when she spoke with reporters in June at the team\u2019s practice facility.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s unfortunate that it\u2019s come to this over basketball,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cA lot of us \u2013 myself included \u2013 didn\u2019t even know the play took place until after the game. Now we\u2019re being painted as thugs. There\u2019s death threats out on us. It\u2019s really unacceptable. It\u2019s something that needs to change in this league and I\u2019m just really sick and tired of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hilton Grand Vacations has fired an employee who sent a racial slur via social media to Las Vegas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":763996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-763995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=763995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}