Tess Holliday, a plus-size model in her forties, recently shared a heart-wrenching experience on a United Airlines flight from Tampa, Florida. The incident took place when she was traveling with her 9-year-old son in first class. As she rose to use the restroom, her hip accidentally hit the flight attendant's call button. Upon her return, the flight attendant began a discourse that left her in a state of shock.
"He started telling me that he noticed I was traveling with my child and that losing weight would be in my best interest," she recounted to People magazine. The flight attendant then shared a personal anecdote about his sister, who he described as "very, very large, probably [Holliday’s] size," and had allegedly faced discrimination on a previous flight. He continued to press his point, saying that both he and his sister needed to lose weight for the long-term health of their bodies.
The conversation persisted for approximately ten minutes, leaving Holliday frozen in place. "I didn’t want to make a scene because my son was with me, but I was also in a state of shock," she said. For Holliday, this flight held special significance as it marked her son's first first-class experience since he was a child. "He had flown when he was a baby, but didn't remember, so this was a really exciting experience for him," she explained in a TikTok video.
The flight attendant also mentioned that a complaint had been filed against his sister for her weight and that United Airlines had reached out to him with comments that "made him uncomfortable." Despite this, he agreed that his sister needed to lose weight. Holliday claimed the flight attendant told her that she should lose weight if she cared about her child's well-being and that she was "kidding herself" if she thought otherwise. The conversation was so prolonged that it became unbearable for Holliday, who eventually excused herself when another passenger approached the restroom.
At the end of her TikTok video, Holliday shared that the same flight attendant came around to her seat offering snacks and allegedly gave her son gummies to keep him from being "tempted." In a comment after the video, Holliday stated that she had spoken to United Airlines and they promised to pass the matter along and discuss it with the team member. She added that she didn't want anyone to lose their job but rather for them to be aware and undergo sensitivity training to prevent such incidents from happening again.
Fox News Digital reached out to Holliday's representative for comment, but United Airlines had no comment for Fox News Digital at the time of writing.
