ITV News has reported that a gay couple, Corey Watts and Jordan Sloan, were travelling in an Uber cab on New Year's Day when they were ordered out by the driver.
❤️🐶
The pair were travelling from Covent Garden at about 8pm, and were "kissing and cuddled next to each other", Sloan, from Canada, told ITV.
When they asked why they were being ordered out, the driver allegedly said: "I take gays but they don't normally do this."
Just got asked to get out of an @Uber cab for kissing my boyfriend. Flipped my shit.
Sloan added:
I've never had any homophobic stuff happen to me so I was caught off guard. You don't expect it to happen in one of the world's biggest cities. I wanted to understand what he was thinking so I asked the driver: "Would you do the same thing if it was a guy or a girl?"
After complaints, Uber has now apologised for the incident.
Still @Uber you delete your tweets and don't follow me to send DMs with the details. Avoiding addressing the issue. Disgusting
A spokesperson for the firm told the broadcaster:
Uber does not tolerate any form of discrimination either by our partner drivers or towards our partner drivers.
We opened an investigation from the moment we learned of this unacceptable incident and have been in contact with the rider to extended our sincere apologies and get further information.
The driver concerned has been suspended from the Uber platform.
The pair told ITV that they hadn't been put off moving to London in a few months due to the incident.
WE PARTY 😍
Watts, a 23-year-old hairstylist from Cardiff, has since aired his views on the incident on Twitter.
Ok we did not expect that kind of reaction from the tweet, but you just can't have archaic and discriminative views in London 2015.
Of course everyone has an opinion on these things. Mine is that I should be able to kiss my partner in public without it being an issue.
We weren't drunk or rowdy. It was a kiss between my boyfriend and I that would not have caused an issue had we been male & female.
And if you're someone who's against PDA between any two people then that's your opinion. Mine is that anyone should be able to kiss, no hate
And yes my boyfriend was more diplomatic than I was. It makes me angry that people think they can discriminate with archaic ignorant views.
The name of Watts' boyfriend is Jordan Sloan. A previous version of this story misspelled his surname.