New Yorker writer Gia Tolentino was called out after bragging about stealing from Whole Foods in an interview Wednesday with far-left commentator Hassan Picker, who also said he was “pro-stealing.”
“I would say, I think stealing from a big box store — I’ll just state my platform — is not very important as a moral wrong, nor is it important in any way as a protest or direct action. But I have stolen from Whole Foods on several occasions,” Tolentino said on the New York Times Opinion Podcast.
She described a specific scenario in which she stole a lemon from Whole Foods and didn’t feel bad about it.
“I’ve been involved in the neighborhood mutual aid group since 2021,” Tolentino said. “And so every week I would go get groceries for my now family friend, Miss Nancy, who lives nearby. And she wanted to go to Whole Foods. She wanted food from Whole Foods. And I was like, ‘Okay, cool.’ And so I’d bring Miss Nancy all her groceries, and then I’d finish, and I’d be like, ‘Oh my God, four lemons, I forgot four lemons.’ And on several occasions I was like, ‘I’m going back, grab those four lemons and get the hell out.’
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Thursday, March 5, 2026 in Colonie, NY Gia Tolentino attends Power of Story: On Legacy at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival at the Egyptian Theater in Park City, Utah, outside Whole Foods Market in Colonie, NY.
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Nadja Spiegelman of the New York Times, who hosted a conversation with Tolentino and Picker, called the idea that people are stealing small things from big companies and feeling justified in doing so “microlooting”.
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Tolentino was called out by some fellow New York commentators, cited by X, The Atlantic, The Free Press and The New York Post.
Thomas Chatterton Williams of The Atlantic wrote a piece titled “Theft is Now Progressive Chic” regarding the couple’s argument.
“It is difficult to know where to begin with such a moral argument, if it can be called an argument at all,” Williams wrote. “In a time of kleptocratic governance and corporate aristocracy, Tolentino and Picker resort to a game of dastardly cabotism. For them, theft is a kind of perverse virtue signaling. Social problems don’t just excuse individual wrongdoing; they glorify it.”
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“Both Tolentino and Picker seem to justify stealing from large companies like Whole Foods, which is owned by Amazon, because those corporations exploit workers and budget for the theft in advance,” he continued. “Why wave our hands when shoplifting is written about? Such attempts to normalize petty crime make Vicki Osterwell’s 2020 Manifesto, In defense of robberyLook high-minded.”
The New York Post reported that Tolentino lives in a $2.5 million brownstone in New York, and spoke to New York City residents about Tolentino’s comments.
“She’s rich … and I’m not. We don’t live on the same planet,” said Andrea Jones, 49, who lives in Gompers House public housing, according to the Post. “They’re going to raise the price because of him and I’m going to have to pay more. He’s hurting me, he’s not helping me.”
“I wonder why everything from toothpaste to deodorant at CVS is sealed behind plastic,” the Post’s Lydia Moynihan wrote in response to Tolentino’s comments.
In another post to X, Moynihan called on Tolentino to ban Whole Foods.
American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Fellow Robert Pondisio wrote, “I just canceled my subscription to @NewYorker. I’ll shop it from now on. Fair fair, @CondeNast.”
“Whole Foods should post her picture and ban her from entering in the future,” wrote Dispatch editor-in-chief Jonah Goldberg.
Whole Foods did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
“Has there ever been a more perfect marriage of smug elitism, disregard for common sense morality, and masturbatory self-importance?” asked podcast host Coleman Hughes.
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Picker said he was in favor of stealing from big corporations because they “steal” from their workers.
“I’m in favor of stealing from big corporations, because they steal a little bit more from their own workers,” Picker said on “The Opinions” podcast. “However, one thing that might help your ethical dilemma is the fact that these companies know that the automated process they designed will increase shrinkage, right?”
Asked about the argument that if a ton of people started stealing from Whole Foods, they would raise prices, Picker said he supports it.
“Yes, chaos. Total chaos. Let’s go. I mean, look, I’m all for fast and free buses and government-owned storefronts. And two of those policies, the mayor of this beautiful city is working right now,” he said.
“‘Microlooting’ and “social murder” are part of this new soft socialist language that allows law-breaking and murder,” New York Post columnist Kirsten Fleming wrote in response to the news.
Cause reporter Billy Binion called out Tolentino for shoplifting while shopping for his “mutual aid group”.
“The scariest part about this is that she says she stole while shopping for her mutual aid group. Those networks exist to bring communities together, build trust and advance it. It’s hard to think of a better way to undermine your community than to steal from it,” Binion wrote.
Jim Geraghty of National Review responded with the suggestion, “If you commit crimes, don’t brag about them on podcasts.”
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A host on NewsNation, Batya Ungar-Sargon, called out both Piker and Tolentino for posts on X as well as a Substack column titled, “Rich people don’t play by the rules so why should I?” Ask the three rich leftists who celebrate theft and murder.”
“They pretend to steal from a hatred of injustice, corporations and corporate abuses, while the educated rich get to play as members of the working class, a gambit designed to hide their own enormous privilege. They pretend to hate a system that will not replace anything in the X world,” he wrote.
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The New Yorker and Tolentino did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Fox News Digital.
Original article source: A New Yorker journalist who brags about shoplifting makes big threats online
