Selma Blair has finally broken her silence following her arrest on a plane last week.
In a statement to People Friday, Blair’s rep gave a long response in the days following her arrest, where she allegedly injured two flight attendants and attempted to open the plane door mid-flight. Her rep explained in the statement that the actress “did not intend to harm anyone.”
“Since Sunday night, the public account of what happened to Selma aboard a flight to New York has been built almost entirely on a police statement and a decade-old headline,” the statement from Blair’s spokesperson read.
It continued: “A handful of journalists have taken the time to report on Selma as a human being rather than a headline, and we are grateful to them. But fair reporting has been the exception, and in the space left by our silence, speculation has hardened into something being treated as fact. We can, however, correct the record on a few points already in public circulation. Selma Blair experienced a medical emergency on the flight. There was no attempt to open the door of the aircraft. Selma did not intend to harm anyone.”
Blair was charged with second-degree assault following Sunday’s plane incident. She posted a $20,000 bail after appearing in Queens Criminal Court Monday evening, per AP News.
Blair, who was diagnosed with MS in 2018, was similarly removed from an international flight from Cancun in 2016 after causing a disturbance mid-air. Following this second mid-air issue, it led many online to wonder if the actress truly had MS at all. The rep’s statement said that was an “outrageous” suggestion.
“The suggestion by anyone that Selma does not have multiple sclerosis is outrageous,” the statement read. “Her diagnosis has been public since 2018. What Selma has been able to do physically in the years since is nothing short of a miracle. She still has bad days, and she lives with pain daily. Selma also has pseudobulbar affect, a neurological condition secondary to her MS, which bears directly on how a medical episode presents to people who do not know her. For the same reason, she travels with a service dog who doesn’t leave her side, and the authorities took her dog from her.”
It finished: “There is much more to this story than has been reported, 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.”
