MAGA woman in infamous Scottsdale Target video sought by U.K. police

In 2020, as COVID-19 was ripping through the United States, MAGA influencer Melissa Rein Lively went the wrong kind of viral for destroying a facemask display at a Target store in Scottsdale.

Now the 40-year-old has allegedly caused another disturbance across the proverbial pond, putting her on the radar of British police. According to the British Transport Police, a woman who appears to be Lively may have participated in a racially charged assault with her boyfriend in a London train station in October.

On Nov. 10, the British Transport Police published a release appealing for information and included an image of a man and a woman — who appear to be Lively and her boyfriend, venture capitalist Philipp Ostermann — taken at the time of the incident. “Officers believe the man and woman in the image could have information that may assist their enquiries,” the release says, rather diplomatically.

Translated into American: We’re after these assholes.

According to the release, a woman was walking into Bond Street Underground Station in London near Hyde Park on the evening of Oct. 11 with her sister and two young children, one of whom was in a wheelchair. A man and a woman, allegedly Ostermann and Lively, were talking in front of them when the wheelchair hit the woman. The man then began “shouting racial abuse” at the family — the release does not give specifics — before Lively grabbed the hair of the woman who was pushing the wheelchair.

When the woman attempted to defend herself, Ostermann allegedly pulled out a small bottle of pepper spray and sprayed it in the family’s direction. The woman who was with him, supposedly Lively, continued to shout and make “lewd gestures” at the family before leaving the area, according to the police. 

Carrying pepper spray in the UK is a crime and can carry a six-month prison sentence.

The photo of the incident included in the release leaves little to speculation. It clearly depicts Lively, sporting the “Mar-a-Lago face” she became known for, and Ostermann, who is the associate director of the Munich-based firm Aequita, which has offices in Tokyo and South Carolina. Ostermann appears to be holding something, though that part of the image is blurred. Lively, with long blonde hair and puffed-up lips, stands next to him. One of her hands is also blurred.

The couple was definitely in the United Kingdom, according to The Independent, because Lively was scheduled to speak at a private equity conference outside of London just three days after the assault. Lively’s Instagram has been made private, but a Facebook post from Oct. 20 shows her in London with Ostermann for the private equity conference.

In one photo in front of Sotheby’s, she’s wearing the same outfit — leather pants, black boots, dark overcoat and white blouse — as the woman in the photo, and is carrying a similar-looking Chanel handbag. 

“With love from London,” she captioned the photo, with heart and Union Jack flag emojis, just nine days after she allegedly assaulted a family.

The incident is the latest chapter in Lively’s lengthy and odd time as a semi-public figure. Before her viral Target tantrum, Lively feuded with the heavyweight Scottsdale PR firm Rose, Moser and Allyn, where she used to work. She then started her own PR firm, American First PR, which she based in Scottsdale and claimed was “America’s 1st Anti-Woke PR Firm.” 

Around the time of her Target incident, she became a member of the far-right conspiracy group QAnon and even referred to herself as the group’s spokesperson. She’s since had a falling out with the movement and said her erratic actions were spurred by mental health issues she was confronting.

In late 2024, she moved away from Scottsdale to Palm Beach, where Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort is, to campaign for the White House press secretary job under the second Trump administration, according to Politico. Karoline Leavitt got that job instead.