'Racist's fav drink': Woman gets hate message on Charlie Kirk order at Starbucks

Mike Stunson, The Kansas City Star on Sep 23, 2025

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When a woman ordered the viral Charlie Kirk drink at a Starbucks in Ohio, she found a hateful message written on her cup.

“Racist’s fav drink,” the message on Autumn Perkins’ cup read, she shared in a post Sunday on Facebook.

Perkins said she does not go to Starbucks often, but decided to go to the coffee shop inside Kroger on Towne Boulevard in Middletown to order the drink many people have purchased since the Sept. 10 assassination of Kirk.

Kirk had a go-to order, the Mint Majesty Tea with two honeys, and the drink has been popularized as a way to memorialize the popular conservative activist.

“I support Charlie Kirk so I thought you know what ... I’ll get his drink,” Perkins said on Facebook. “Thank you Starbucks for proving to me exactly why I prefer to support my small local Christian-owned and operated coffee shop. Well done.”

The customer said she went back to the shop and reported the barista to her manager. She also said she would be contacting the Starbucks corporate office.

In a statement to the Cincinnati Enquirer, Starbucks said the worker was fired.

“Writing this on a cup is unacceptable,” a Starbucks spokesperson told the Enquirer. “We have policies that prohibit negative messages to help preserve a welcoming environment.”

Starbucks has come under pressure following multiple instances surrounding the viral Kirk order.

In California, a TikTok user said a barista refused to write Kirk’s name on her cup.

Another customer said in a TikTok she and her husband asked to have the political activist’s name written on their cups, but the shop refused.

After people began saying Starbucks was prohibiting Kirk messaging on cups, the coffee chain released a Sept. 17 statement.

“When a customer wants to use a different name — including the name Charlie Kirk — when ordering their drink in our café, we aim to respect their preference,” Starbucks said.

However, Starbucks prohibits political slogans or negatives messages so “everyone feels welcome.”

“We have previously provided guidance to our partners to respectfully ask the customer to use a different name when attempting to use political slogans or phrases in place of their name,” the statement continued. “We are clarifying with our team now that names, on their own, can be used by customers on their café order, as they wish.”

Middletown, the hometown of Vice President JD Vance, is about a 40-mile drive northwest from Cincinnati.

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