A woman says she wants to apologize directly to the hot dog vendor she stole from in Austin, and her reason is why she should have known better

A woman who was filmed taking a hot dog from a vendor in Austin without paying has been identified, and she has since issued a public apology. The incident happened after the first weekend of the Austin City Limits festival, and social media users quickly labeled her the “hot dog bandit.”

As detailed by BroBible, a TikTok creator known as Grrrrlonline posted a video showing a woman taking food from a vendor after the festival. The on-screen text asked viewers if anyone knew the woman and claimed, “She thought it would be so funny to just take food from hard-working food vendors.” The text also stated that she did not pay and that her friends found the situation funny as well.

The video gained significant traction, and viewers quickly identified the woman as Harper and tagged her in the comments. Harper, who posts on TikTok as @harper.tishgart, later acknowledged in a statement that she was the person in the video.

Harper says her own upbringing should have stopped her

“I’m here to say that I stole the [hot dog],” Harper said in her statement. “I’m so sorry.” She went on to call her behavior “disrespectful and entitled,” adding that she was embarrassed by what she did.

Harper also pointed to her family background in the statement. “I come from a service industry family. I know how hard this work is,” she wrote, adding that she should have known better.

Several commenters asked why she went through with it if she truly understood the struggles of service industry workers. The criticism arrived amid a separate hotel kitchen food theft case, and the apparent contradiction in Harper’s statement was a common point raised by viewers.

After Harper was identified, Grrrrlonline disabled the comment section on the original post. The creator shared an update noting that the woman had been found and had apologized. The update also expressed hope that Harper would donate money to food vendors outside the festival during its second weekend.

Harper said she wants to make things right by apologizing to the vendor directly and paying him for the food. She noted that she does not know where she got the food from, which makes finding him difficult. “This man was working to make a living,” she wrote, before asking people to send the vendor her way privately.

Some viewers suggested she donate to a food bank if she cannot locate the vendor. Austin City Limits organizers frequently donate leftover festival food to the Central Texas Food Bank.