Selma Blair pleads not guilty to assault charges following plane altercation
The actress says she experienced a medical emergency on a Delta flight to New York and denies intending to harm anyone.
What happened
Actress Selma Blair, 54, was involved in an altercation on a Delta Airlines flight from Los Angeles to New York on Sunday evening, December 4, 2022. She was accused of assaulting multiple people: two flight attendants aboard the aircraft, an officer, and a nurse after being removed from the plane. New York Port Authority officials responded to a call about a "physically abusive passenger," and a pilot reported a "bloody nose" and "some bite marks" on the aircraft. Blair was arrested, taken to hospital, and issued a federal summons by the FBI for assault within special maritime and territorial jurisdiction, along with two additional state-level assault charges. She pleaded not guilty to all charges and was released on bail. Media reports also claimed she attempted to open the aircraft door, which Blair's team denied.
Context
Blair's legal team attributes the incident to a medical emergency and her ongoing battle with multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic neurological disorder she publicly revealed in 2018 and announced was in remission in 2021. Her statement notes she still experiences difficult days and also lives with pseudobulbar affect (PBA), a neurological condition causing sudden, involuntary episodes of emotional outbursts (laughing, crying, or anger) that may not reflect actual emotional state. Her team contends that her neurological conditions bear directly on how a medical episode presents to observers unfamiliar with her case, and argues that public accounts have relied primarily on police statements rather than the full circumstances. Blair has never been arrested before this incident.
What's disputed
Whether Blair attempted to open the aircraft door; the full circumstances of the medical emergency and how her neurological conditions factored into the incident; the characterization of events by police versus Blair's account.