As we’ve discussed, Netflix just released a six-minute preview of the new season of Wednesday. One of my favorite parts of the clip is Wednesday Addams going through security at Newark Airport (who knew how prescient setting a horror show at Newark would end up being, amirite?). After unloading all manner of instruments (weapons) Wednesday has packed to use against the Kansas City Scalper, what is the item TSA agents end up dinging her for? A sunscreen bottle larger than three ounces! As someone who had to surrender my own sunscreen at JFK just a few months ago, the bit spoke to me. This preamble brings us to Ellen Pompeo. The Grey’s Anatomy star just revealed to Travel + Leisure that on a recent flight, TSA agents detained her for an hour while they called in the bomb squad… to inspect her bag of sunflower seeds! What, were they worried she bought them from the same dealer who sold Jack his beanstalk beans?
“I had a bag of sunflower seeds, like organic sunflower seeds from Erewhon, so they were probably the most expensive sunflower seeds money can buy,” she told Travel + Leisure in an interview published May 29. “They literally held me for an hour, and they brought the bomb squad in.”
And Pompeo couldn’t believe that her seeds—purchased from the upscale Los Angeles grocer known for the Hailey Bieber smoothie—prompted such a serious response.
“And I was like, what is happening? Is this a joke?” she recalled. “They said it was most likely a chemical on the packaging of these super expensive, fancy, organic, clean sunflower seeds. My protein on the plane!”
Even when the actress offered to throw away the seeds, she said officials needed her to remain put while they investigated the unopened bag.
“I almost missed the flight,” the 55-year-old shared. “It was really like no one would ever believe this! I was texting my publicist saying, ‘I might not get on this plane, and you’re never gonna guess why.’”
And while Pompeo’s protein-packed snack certainly set off alarms, it’s not the only time her dedication to her health has sparked controversy.
In fact, she recently recalled that she was once “so skinny” that “everyone thought I had an eating disorder.”
“The tabloids would say horrible things,” she told People in February. “I just remember being so anxious on red carpets, and the comments about my weight and my body.”
“It was a whole situation with how skinny I was, and there was so much negative attention,” she explained. “Girls today can be gorgeous and thin and thank God we’re not allowed to comment on women’s bodies, even though people do. But I just had so much anxiety and lacked self-esteem because people were so critical of my physicality.”
I know this isn’t the point of the story, but a bag of overpriced organic sunflower seeds was her entire protein for the flight? Dare I say, that is literally eating like a bird! Anyway, I ribbed the TSA agents earlier, but kidding aside, this exact same thing happened to me. Only it wasn’t a bag of sunflower seeds but a big burrito tightly wrapped in tin foil. And I wasn’t detained for an hour while bomb squad came in to assist, but instead had to suffer through the withering gaze of the agents whose facial expressions loudly said, “Damn lady, that is one big ass burrito.” (It was a cross country flight! I need more protein than Ellen!) I can’t believe they didn’t just let her throw the seeds away like she offered. That seems needlessly crazy on the TSA’s part. Personally, I would sooner sit down in place and eat my burrito than trash it, but I guess that’s the difference between me and Ellen. (Or a burrito and sunflower seeds.)
Completely unrelated comment: how have Ellen Pompeo and Renee Zellweger never been cast as sisters in a project? I watched Ellen’s Hulu show Good American Family, and spent the whole first episode thinking, “I KNOW that voice!”
Photos credit: Sebastien Fremont/Starface Photo/Cover Images, T.Jackson/Backgrid, Roger Wong/INSTARimages, Getty and via Instagram
We can’t take a lot of seeds, fruit, vegetables, fish, meat into /out of some places but they just ask you to throw them out. It’s not a hold someone thing. The US immigration and customs have lost their collective minds. Go TO NZ they’re very strict, they still don’t hold people. They do use sniffer dogs for all of the above.
This was not over the seeds specifically as the article mentioned, it was due to a chemical detected on the seeds that set off the alert for the bomb squad.
I went to Auckland and they seized my L’Occitane hand cream which I bought in duty-free SFO.
Don’t bring anything to NZ!
I got escorted to a windowless room for questioning on my way *back* to Tulsa one time (but not on the way out?) because of my hydration backpack. Apparently the empty bladder and all the tubing looked really alarming on the xray… So now I get to pay an extra $70 round trip every time to check a bag for my CamelBak, yay. My coworker got pulled aside for gummie bears, because on the scan they look the same as some sort of explosive. The TSA is nothing but security theater/government job program. We are not safer for taking our shoes off and pouring out our drinks.
She is lucky, that she was not in Australia, after watching their Border Patrol, I’m just buying meals at the airport and throwing the leftovers in the bin.
Don’t bring anything to Australia either!
If she is buying fancy organic seeds for a large price, but there is enough of some chemical (on the bag or in the seeds) to cause this, she needs to re-evaluate what she is buying. If something is really hazardous, just throwing it away won’t take care of that. Unfortunately, there are too many small things (like the fungus some people tried to smuggle in recently) that are dangerous.
Love Australia Border Patrol!
I am always paranoid traveling with my carry on. I am constantly double checking the TSA website and seeing if anything new has been banned.
About a year ago myself too at JFK the agent pulled a bottle of my face lotion out. And waffled it was under 3.4 ounces She literally held it up to the light to see the line marking of the product to bottle. Thankfully, it was about 1/2 used so she let it go through. It’s easy to forget the 3-1-1 rule with the TSA.
I will never forget years ago when I was in Palm Springs working an event for my company. The flight back home. A TSA agent was tossing out containers of creams and bottles of perfumes from women’s bags. Since it didn’t fall to the under the 3-1-1 rule set by the TSA – Each container must be 3.4 ounces.
The women were losing their minds since it was such expensive products (Palm Springs money) going into the trash. This man would not budge. Out it goes.
I tell you pre-2001 I still remember walking up to the airline ticket counter. Giving my paper ticket, showing my ID. Then walking straight to my gate. I miss that golden age of flying. When the world seemed just a little safer.
Do they throw the perfume etc away or do they auction it?
I did ask the NZ customs person if I could fill in a form to get my BNIB hand cream back. She said no.
It was still wrapped in its plastic 😩 should have used it on the flight.
I went to visit my old au pairs in Germany as soon as I was able after a ton of cancer treatment. I did not do a thorough cleaning of my backpack and, on my way out of Munich, they kept re-running it through security and then, they looked at how feeble I was, shrugged their shoulders and just let me on the plane. As I was pulling out my eye mask/ear plugs/neck pillow, I realized there was a WHOLE THC-laced chocolate bar in there!!! I shared with some of the other people in first class to make sure it was finished and the flight attendant said we were the snackiest/sleepiest group of travelers ever. This was in August 2021, so I guess security was a little out of practice, but I always feel badly when innocent people get detained when this nauseous post-chemo moron got away with it!
thank God that girls today can finally be gorgeous and thin…I have empathy for someone who is picked apart in the press, but let’s not pretend that gorgeous and thin girls have it the worst…
Also – is she using it in the context of – they are gorgeous because they are thin? Or are they two separate descriptors – gorgeous, who also happen to be thin?
TSA must train their agents to be rude. I finally told one “please stop yelling at me, ma’am” because she didn’t think I was getting my stuff on the belt fast enough. this was after 19 hours of travel, no sleep on a bumpy flight, 6 in the morning, heavy bag and me with a shoulder that needs to be replaced.
I’ve traveled to more than 100 countries and it’s honestly not like the USA experience anywhere else. the lines move much more quickly, the security people are polite and courteous, often helpful, and none of the hollering that is so much the TSA experience. And I’ve been on PreCheck since the program begun.
You will pardon me if I suspect that there is more to this than meets the eye. Ms. Pompeo has been a vocal critic of this administration, and there is plenty of proof that that border agents and police have targeted people identified as enemies. It’s not a huge leap to suggest that TSA may be doing the same.
I fly to WI and back a few times a year and love to bring back block cheese. I was quickly informed by TSA to put the cheese in its own bin for security because the texture looks like a bomb, so now I always do and they might pull it to take a quick look but don’t stop me for a full bag search anymore. One time they did make me throw away three small unopened containers of cheese spread because it was considered a ‘liquid’ (it’s not IMHO). I jokingly asked the agent if she was having it for lunch later and she shot me a nasty look and said “of course not. It’s going straight to the dumpster”. Like, come on lady, this is Wisconsin and it’s just cheese spread – I think it’ll be ok to let me through with it.
I have also gotten pulled aside for candles, a rice krispie treat, a jewelry box with my heavy silver sterling/turquoise jewelry in it, a tickle-me-Elmo doll, a very thick paperback book, some jars of jam (that was my bad, it was only my second time flying and I didn’t know that was a liquid) and a box of Cards Against Humanity.