Gym-goer claims he was kicked out of Crunch Fitness for wearing popular hat

Daily Mail​

08-05-2025

A Wisconsin gym-goer has claimed he was kicked out of a Crunch Fitness franchise because he proudly displayed his support for President Donald Trump - though police say his ouster was a result of his harassing other members.
Michael Green, 42, is now suing the Fitness Ventures LLC - a Crunch franchisee with locations in 27 states, claiming he was discriminated against for wearing a 'Trump 2024' hat, the Independent reports.
Green admits in the lawsuit he still does not 'understand what happened' when he was escorted out of the Madison location on March 30.
But he has come to the conclusion 'someone at the gym had a perceived issue with me and decided to weaponize the police against me.'
'I had been wearing a pro-Trump hat during prior gym visits, but stopped du to the stares I would get from staff and members,' he wrote in the federal complaint he filed himself.
'Perhaps it was some kind of retaliation for being a Trump supporter, even worse a black Trump supporter in Dane County.'
Green is now arguing that the gym violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by 'engaging in discriminatory practices' against him.
He is seeking $75,000 in damages, which he says is 'enough that [it] may provide a deterrent from similar behavior in the future.'
According to his complaint, Green was working out at the gym on March 30 when he was suddenly 'approached by a staff member and two Madison Police officers.
'The staff member said that I was being "aggressive" to gym members,' he recounts. 'I still have no clue what exactly is going on, the staff member was extremely vague.'
He said he then asked if he could use the shower before he left, and was told that he couldn't - at which point he went into the locker room 'to change clothes as quickly as I could.'
As soon as he left the locker room, Green claims he was confronted by 'six to 10 Madison police officers.
'I asked them what was going on, they explained thy were called to make sure I left the premises, and I left as instructed.'
Once outside, though, Green claims he realized he had left some of his belongings inside the gym - and called the office to see if a staffer could give his items to one of the cops at the scene.
But the complaint says the officers soon left, and the Crunch employee told him to meet him at the gym entrance to pick up his stuff.
'While walking towards the gym, I flagged down a Madison Police officer and asked them if they could get my items instead of me approaching the gym,' Green wrote. '[T]he officer agreed.'
At that point, Green said he called the gym to tell the staff member that a police officer would be returning to collect the items rather than himself.
But the situation quickly escalated when Green complained abut the 'vulgar, racist stereotyping rap music' the gym plays, which he says 'paints African Americans in a fictional, terrible light.'
The staffer then allegedly denigrated black people - which Green responded to with a homophobic slur.
The police incident report obtained by the Independent, though, tells a completely different story.
It says police were dispatched to the gym on March 30 after an employee complained about a member who was allegedly 'causing a disturbance' and asked to have police standing by when staffers removed him.
The guest - Green - had allegedly 'approached other gym members and screamed and cursed at them' because he wanted to use their equipment.
The police report notes that members of the gym asked the manager to have Green removed, but did not want to file charges against him.
It also says that only two officers responded to the call - not the half dozen Green claimed - and they escorted him to the locker room, then stood outside as he gathered his belongings.
In the end, the police report says, officers told Green not to return to the gym for the remainder of the day and he was seen walking away.
'The case is closed on our end,' a Madison police spokeswoman told The Independent.
But this is not the first time Green has filed a discrimination lawsuit against a gym.
In fact, just two weeks before he filed the federal suit against Fitness Ventures LLC, he sued Anytime Fitness - making similar accusations.
In that suit, Green says he would repeatedly receive sneers from his fellow gym-goers for 'show[ing] my support of our president by wearing different types of Trump apparel such as hats, book bags, t-shirts, etc.'
Then on February 4, Green said another member snickered at him and told him 'I'm wondering why your black and you like Trump so much.'
Green claims in the lawsuit that he ignored the man and 'told him I'd train him instead of arguing with him.
'As I worked out, I explained to him what kind of exercises I was doing and why I was doing them. I did that throughout my workout,' he admits.
'At some point in the morning, one of the Anytime staff members showed up and asked me what was going on,' he continued.
'I explained to him that I was trying to train that guy so he could stop being concerned about my political leanings.... He told me that it was my fault that I chose to be pro-Trump, then he told me to stop bothering the guest.'
In the aftermath, Green said he complained to Anytime Fitness about the employee - and when he went to a different location later that day, he received a phone call from someone claiming to be the vice president of the gym.
The vice president informed him that he wanted to cancel Green's contract, but Green continued his workout.
By the time he was changing out of his exercise clothes, Green claimed Madison police came and escorted him out.
But Green decided to press matters and mentioned Richard Johnson, who he said was 'a young African American man that Madison police recently beat to death and used the Dane sheriff to help them attempt to cover it.
'Apparently that angered the cop, which set up a path for a rough night of abuse by law enforcement, starting with me bein arrested for trespassing,' he wrote.
Green did not name Madison police as a defendant in either lawsuit - and apparently came to the conclusion that the fault lies with Dane County (which he did not name as a defendant either).
He described the county in his latest suit as being 'extremely liberal' and derides the residents as being biased against conservatives.
'The anger I feel about this can only be overshadowed by an overall sense of sadness,' he writes.