US actress Selma Blair has spoken out after being accused of assaulting multiple people on a flight travelling to New York.
A publicist for the Legally Blonde star said she “did not intend to harm anyone” and there was “much more to this story”. Blair “experienced a medical emergency on the flight” and is still fighting multiple sclerosis (MS), the statement read.
The statement says that Blair, 54, has a neurological disorder that “bears directly on how a medical episode presents to people who do not know her”.
The star pleaded not guilty to charges that she assaulted an officer and a nurse after being removed from the flight. She was also accused of assulting two flight attendants on board.
In a statement to the BBC, Blair’s team said the public account of what happened to her aboard a Delta Airlines flight to New York “has been built almost entirely on a police statement and a decade-old headline”. They also denied media reports that she had attempted to open the door of the aircraft.
The publicist noted Blair’s fight against multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic illness the actress revealed publicly in 2018. She announced in 2021 that she was in remission for the disease, but the statement notes that the Hellboy and Cruel Intentions star “still has bad days”.
It adds that she also has pseudobulbar affect (PBA) – a disorder that develops in the context of a brain injury or underlying neurological dysfunction, according to the US National Institutes of Health.
The disorder affects emotional expression that can result in sudden involuntary, and out-of-control episodes of laughing, crying, or anger that do not match how a person actually feels.
