Natasha Tynes, a D.C.-area author who faced backlash last month for publicly shaming a black Metro employee for eating on the train, is now suing her publisher for cancelling the publication of her book during the fallout from the incident.

Tynes is accusing the publishing house, Rare Bird, of breaching their publishing contract, defaming her, and causing her emotional distress, according to the complaint. She is asking for $13 million total in restitution. The Washington Post was the first to report on the lawsuit.

On May 10, Tynes drew criticism after tweeting out a photo of a black woman in a Metro uniform eating breakfast on the train. “When you’re on your morning commute and see @wmata employee in UNIFORM eating on the train. I thought we were not allowed to eat on the train. This is unacceptable,” Tynes tweeted.  “Hope @wmata responds. When I asked the employee about this, her response was ‘worry about yourself.'”

WMATA responded to Tynes shortly after, asking her for more details, ostensibly in an effort to identify the employee. (Metro regulations do not allow eating or drinking on the train, though people regularly flout that rule. At the time Tynes sent her tweet, Metro Transit Police were not citing or arresting people for eating or drinking on the train, according to a directive from the chief.) Tynes responded to all of Metro’s questions, but after the social media blowback began, she deleted her original tweet and her response to WMATA. She issued an apology tweet later in the morning, and eventually deleted her entire Twitter account.

As the tweet got traction, people began accusing Tynes of publicly shaming a black woman and endangering her livelihood over a minor indiscretion. “Just mind your own business and leave Black people alone. The only reason someone would get this mad at another human needing to eat, is because they don’t actually view them as human or deserving of autonomy and respect,” read one tweet.

Barry Hobson, the chief of staff for Metro employees’ union, told DCist at the time that the employee in question felt humiliated by Tynes’ decision to post her photo on social media, and she wished Tynes would have simply contacted Metro privately with her complaint.

In the ensuing hours and days, Tynes’ publisher and book distributor released statements cancelling the publication of her upcoming novel, They Called Me Wyatt. The book had been flooded with thousands of bad reviews and low ratings on Goodreads after the incident.

In a statement, Rare Bird said that Tynes “did something truly horrible today in posting a picture of a metro worker eating her breakfast on the train this morning … Black women face a constant barrage of this kind of inappropriate behavior directed toward them and a constant policing of their bodies. We think this is unacceptable and have no desire to be involved with anyone who thinks it’s acceptable to jeopardize a person’s safety and employment in this way.”

The complaint calls these accusations defamatory. “Plaintiff did not police a black woman’s body. Plaintiff took no action that could have possibly jeopardized anybody’s safety. Plaintiff did not engage in any kind of racism or bigotry,” the suit reads.

According to Tynes’ lawsuit, after issuing her apology and deleting her tweets, Tynes called Metro to ensure that no disciplinary action would be taken against the employee (the agency has indicated that it would not discipline the employee). After calling Metro, Tynes called a representative at Rare Birds and its publishing affiliate California Coldblood, the complaint says. The representative, Robert Jason Peterson, reportedly told Tynes that he didn’t blame her for the incident, and that “you’ll get through this, we’ve got your back.”

Peterson asked Tynes repeatedly to issue another public statement on the matter, the complaint says, letting the public know she had made the call to Metro. But Tynes’ employer had asked her not to speak publicly about the incident again, and she didn’t want to risk her job, the suit says. That’s reportedly when Rare Bird released its statement.

After the statement was released, Tynes was “rushed to the hospital suffering acute anxiety reaction and suicidal ideation in response” to the statement and the backlash from the photo, the complaint says. She was reportedly suffering symptoms like shakiness, hyperventilation, and chest pain, and was prescribed seven medications as a result.

Tynes is also accusing Rare Bird of “intentionally ginning up outrage against [her],” not only with the companies own statements on the matter, but also by “endorsing tweets like ‘Life comes at you fast in these Black Twitter streets,'” according to the suit. “Rare Bird does not employ any minority staff—it is an all-white company—and nobody at Rare Bird is part of the ‘Black Twitter streets,'” the suit reads.

Rare Bird also allegedly canceled all pre-orders of They Call Me Wyatt during pre-litigation discussions, even though the sales had “skyrocketed.” This cost Tynes in royalties and sabotaged the book’s commercial success, the suit says.

After the incident, Tynes reportedly received a barrage of death threats and racist insults (Tynes is Jordanian-American). She flew to Jordan on May 21 out of fear that her family might be subjected to violence, the complaint reads.

So what was Tynes’ initial motivation for sending the tweet that started all of this? As a mother of three, the complaint reads, Tynes often doesn’t have time for breakfast, but was always fearful she would be ticketed for eating on the Metro. “She would have enjoyed such privileges” as eating her breakfast on the train like the Metro employee, the complaint says.

Natasha Tynes Complaint by wamu885 on Scribd