Selma Blair ‘did not intend to harm anyone’ during airplane incident, representatives say

Actor Selma Blair did not mean to hurt anyone during the recent flight which led to her arrest on allegations that she assaulted a pair of cabin crew members, a police officer and a nurse, her representatives said on Friday in a statement that characterized the episode as a medical emergency.The lengthy statement also dismissed prior media coverage of Blair’s arrest after a Delta Air Lines flight from Los Angeles to New York as unsympathetic and inaccurate, singling out reporting from several outlets alleging that she tried to open the door of the airplane that she and her fellow passengers were on.“Selma Blair experienced a medical emergency on the flight,” her representatives’ statement contended. “There was no attempt to open the door of the aircraft. Selma did not intend to harm anyone.”Friday’s statement from Blair’s camp added some contours to brief remarks made in the days since her arrest by her publicist and lawyer which maintained that there had been a medical emergency but did not elaborate much.Without specifying who may have done so, the statement on Friday called it “outrageous” for anyone to suggest Blair does not have multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic neurological disorder which she went public about being diagnosed with in 2018.“What Selma has been able to do physically in the years since is nothing short of a miracle,” said the statement, which was reported by the Associated Press and People. “She still has bad days, and she lives with pain daily.”The statement said Blair has a condition secondary to her MS known as pseudobulbar affect, “which bears directly on how a medical episode presents to people who do not know her”.Blair therefore “travels with a service dog who doesn’t leave her side”.“And the authorities took her dog from her,” said the statement, which described Blair as a disability rights and MS community advocate.Blair’s statement faulted media outlets which – in covering her arrest on Sunday – referred to a 2016 incident in which she reportedly began screaming uncontrollably while on a Los Angeles-bound flight from Cancún, Mexico, before being removed on a stretcher.The actor apologized after that earlier incident, saying that she “mixed alcohol with medication”, blacking out as a result while saying and doing things that “I deeply regret”.Blair’s representatives expressed gratitude to the “handful of journalists [who] have taken the time to report on Selma as a human being rather than a headline”.“Fair reporting has been the exception,” said their statement on Friday, which accused the media of building a narrative around Blair almost solely on police allegations “and a decade-old headline”.“There is much more to this than has been reported,” the statement continued, without offering specifics. “And we ask to consider the entirety of the facts before rushing to judgment, whether in the courtroom or in the court of public opinion.”Authorities accused Blair of injuring two flight attendants while traveling from LA to the John F Kennedy airport (JFK) in New York on Sunday night. She also was alleged to have kicked a police officer taking her to the hospital and kicking a nurse once she arrived at the facility, said a statement from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates JFK.She pleaded not guilty on Monday to state assault charges involving the officer and the nurse, with a judge ordering Blair to stay away from them. Blair was freed on bail and tentatively scheduled to return to court in January.Meanwhile, the AP reported that Blair had gotten a notice from the FBI charging her with assault for alleged actions on Delta flight 938. The outlet cited a federal law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity for not being authorized to speak publicly about the case.Details of exactly what happened in the moments leading up to Blair’s arrest haven’t been disclosed by Delta, state authorities or the FBI. An air traffic control audio recording from the flight Blair was on captured the pilot saying: “One flight attendant and one passenger … sustained some minor injuries – a bloody nose as well as some bite marks.”“I don’t think we need an ambulance or anything like that – but we just want to get some medical personnel at the gate to look at their injuries,” the pilot said, according to the recording, a copy of which was published by NBC Los Angeles.Beside that case and the incident in 2016, Blair grappled with controversy when she apologized in February 2024 for an Islamophobic comment on social media.Blair’s major film credits include Cruel Intentions in 1999, Legally Blonde in 2001 and Hellboy in 2004.She earned a 2011 Grammy award nomination for best spoken word album for children for her work on Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl – The Definitive Edition. And she also starred in the acclaimed 2021 documentary Introducing, Selma Blair, which explores her life after her MS diagnosis.The Associated Press contributed reporting