I haven’t kept up with Selma Blair whatsoever in many years. In 2018, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and for a time, Selma needed crutches and braces to walk. She’s been in remission for several years, but in 2024, she also spoke out about being diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. I mention all of this because Selma is on a lot of medication, and her medication (or lack thereof) is being used as an excuse for a particularly disturbing incident. On Sunday, Selma was on a Delta flight from LA to New York. Mid-flight, Selma physically attacked the flight crew and bit some poor flight attendant. She was put into restraints on the plane and a medical crew and police officers met the plane at JFK. As Selma was being taken off the plane, she attacked and kicked the police and members of the medical team. She’s now facing state and federal charges.
Selma Blair has been arraigned on two counts of assault after being accused of kicking a police officer repeatedly and a nurse in the chest, according to a criminal court affidavit.
The actress, 54, was arrested just after 11 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 11, after her plane landed at Kennedy Airport in New York following an incident during a Delta Air Lines flight from Los Angeles, authorities said.
A source previously told PEOPLE that Blair is set to face charges in both New York state and federal court. She is expected to face her federal charges in petty violations court in Brooklyn and to face two assault charges in criminal court in Queens, sources said.
Blair was arraigned Monday, Oct. 12, before Judge Indira Kahn, who set bail at $20,000 cash, $60,000 bond or a $60,000 partially secured bond, according to court records. She was released on bail Monday evening.
During the incident, Blair is accused of removing her leg from the stretcher straps and kicking Port Authority Police Officer Maria Suarez repeatedly in the face, neck and chest, according to a criminal court affidavit sworn by Port Authority Police Officer Dynosoph Telisma. Suarez experienced swelling to her jaw and substantial pain to her face, neck and chest, the affidavit alleges.
The affidavit also alleges that Blair kicked a registered nurse in the chest at Jamaica Hospital Medical Center at approximately 2 a.m. on Oct. 12, while the nurse was assisting with Blair’s transport for further medical treatment. DeLeo reported substantial pain to her chest, according to the affidavit. The nurse was granted an order of protection.
According to a law enforcement source, the FBI issued Blair a summons on allegations of assaults within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States. She received a violation notice accusing her of allegedly being abusive and assaulting two people during the flight, the Associated Press reported.
According to the 911 call initially obtained by TMZ, the plane’s pilot asked for police and medical personnel to be waiting at the gate, ready to help with injuries the two sustained on the flight. Based on the information he was given at the time, the pilot said, “sounds like one passenger and one flight attendant that sustained some minor injuries — a bloody nose as well as some bite marks,” according to the audio.
Apparently, Blair could do real prison time if convicted, which isn’t a surprise. Celebrities get special treatment in a lot of ways, but having a violent meltdown on a commercial flight and brutally assaulting cops and nurses… that can’t be swept under the rug. Well, it probably could get swept under the rug but Selma isn’t that famous. She could get up to seven years in prison if convicted. Meanwhile, at Selma’s arraignment, her lawyers told the judge that Selma had missed taking her MS medication and she also had a head injury, plus she was working a lot before the flight. As in, exhaustion plus concussion plus missed meds. I’m not sure that will hold up, but we’ll see.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
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- Amazon Prime Video ‘Elle World’ pop-up event—celebrating the 25th anniversary of the film ‘Legally Blonde’ and the series ‘Elle’ at Hall des Lumières Featuring: Selma Blair Where: New York, New York, United States When: 21 Jun 2026 Credit: Janet Mayer/INSTARimages.com
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- Selma Blair celebrates the launch of her first-ever sleepwear collection, Sea La Vie, in collaboration with MERSEA in New York City Featuring: Selma Blair Where: New York, New York, United States When: 14 Apr 2026 Credit: Joey Andrew/startraksphoto.com
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- Amazon Prime Video ‘Elle World’ pop-up event—celebrating the 25th anniversary of the film ‘Legally Blonde’ and the series ‘Elle’ at Hall des Lumières Featuring: Selma Blair Where: New York, New York, United States When: 21 Jun 2026 Credit: Janet Mayer/INSTARimages.com
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- Amazon Prime Video ‘Elle World’ pop-up event—celebrating the 25th anniversary of the film ‘Legally Blonde’ and the series ‘Elle’ at Hall des Lumières Featuring: Selma Blair Where: New York, New York, United States When: 21 Jun 2026 Credit: Janet Mayer/INSTARimages.com
Sounds like she’s got a lot.
And maybe she shouldn’t assault nurses, airline attendants.
And maybe if she’s at risk of doing that, she can’t afford to move around without a carer.
Seriously, we’re meant to felt sympathy for her above the front line workers she bit, kicked, hit, and verbally degraded? Please.
She has another undisclosed mental health condition (s). Therapist here.
“Exhaustion plus concussion plus missed meds” = the strength of 10 grinches plus 2??? Okay.
And her lawyer had the nerve to ask the judge to consider Selma’s “body of work”, as if she’s some national treasure or something. Luckily, the judge was having none of it.
No lie. Cruel Intentions is masterpiece.
Please tell me you’re kidding. I hope the judge laughed.
And Legally Blonde is a classic so…
For sure! That flick where she gets stuck sucking off a dude is on par with ‘The Maltese Falcon’.
lawyers say all sorts of things but saying “…and she’s been working a lot” makes me think she’s on drugs other than medications for illness.
Somewhat related, I have wondered about her dilated pupils at times
This.
Isn’t exhaustion and wrong meds always what is claimed before a 2nd incident and a trip to rejab?
And I don’t want read her clean and sober memoir in 5 years.
This isn’t her first criminal acts on a plane event.
She did a similar thing a decade ago.
Didn’t she try to open the damn plane door that time?
Can we consider the no fly list?
Or is that just for brown people and Kathy griffin?
I think she already did a clean and sober memoir after the last plane incident.
@FYI: Oh, dear.
That is crazy. she tried opening the door and attacked the crew. The excuse is lame for putting everyone on the flight in danger. She’s not well. Being a celebrity with an illness doesn’t excuse you. Imagine being on the flight with your kids or being on that flight with your kids waiting at home. Lock her up or ban her from flights. She’s depressed and clearly a danger to others. Sorry Selma. Just the truth.
MS can make a person extremely erratic and demented, I’ve seen it. Her remission may be up.
I am surprised that so few people seem to be even considering the effect her illness or medications may have had. I could see her (anyone) being snotty, entitled, drunk, etc., but the actions described seem so extreme and so pervasive that I definitely considered whether they could have been caused by her illness or meds.
When I was caring for my mom at night, I missed the fact that her caregiver had missed giving my mom a drug that she took for dementia-like symptoms before the caregiver left for the night. I honestly thought I was going to have to commit my mom to a psychiatric ward before figuring out that the dose had been missed. She was demonic and it was totally unlike her.
so you can get 7 years prison time for biting and kicking someone but the average sentence for rape is less? The criminal justice system is so screwed up
She’s not “getting seven years for biting and kicking someone” because has not been sentenced as punishment for any alleged crimes.
I thought that, because flights take place in air space, federal law (not local) can take precedent when filing charges. Selma Blair is accused of assaulting two flight attendants and attempting to open the airplane’s door mid-flight, and that’s not including her actions after the flight landed. Trying to open a plane door while in air can be interpreted as act of terrorism, and Blair’s previous history of disrupting flights can be taken into consideration especially because of the similarities between the facts of each incident and her attorney’s defense of her actions.
Comparing the punishments between local and federal crimes rarely helps victims of sexual assault but good luck with conflating federal and local law enforcement. It certainly doesn’t lend any sympathy to Selma Blair, either.
I saw the original accusations of trying to open the door midflight which would make the situation much more serious, but they seem to have disappeared from all the recent articles. Are we sure that this is a part of the accusations?
Brad Pitt assaulted several people while their flight was in the air and again on the tarmac. He certainly didn’t have a repercussions from that stunt.
I was wondering about the FBI involvement. As flying comes under federal laws, wouldn’t the Federal Air Marshal Service be the ones to act here, not the FBI? Or are things just totally screwed up now?
The typical penalty for rape sucks and minimizes the suffering and harm imposed on women. Period. Assaulting multiple people, to the point that one had a swollen face and one had visible bite marks, is worthy of significant punishment. Period. I hope that clears it up for you.
I am neutral re: Selma Blaire but she assaulted two flight attendants, a police officer, a nurse and a doctor. For an extended period of time, she assaulted several people in different locations from the plane to the airport to the transport to the hospital. Is this type of reaction (or sequence of behaviors) common to people who skip (or miss various scheduled doses) taking specific types of MS meds?
Or is this sequence of assaults specific to Selma Blair who wrote in her autobiography about her habit of biting people and ten years ago, was kicked off another flight?
@Frida’s Xolo…this type of reaction would be normal is if she had missed dose of psychotic medication, and if she had a concussion on top of missing psychotic medication absolutely. However, if you have a concussion you shouldn’t be flying anyway as cabin pressure would affect
But do people with MS take anti-psychotic medication? I’m confused about that & I don’t know anyone with MS. I had a co-worker with MS & remember her getting very tired at times & having to take a nap, but that’s about it.
Hasn’t she had disruptive incidents while flying in the past?
Keep in mind she was also arrested in 2016 for behavior on a flight (and gave the excuse she had been drinking with medication). I wonder if she did the same here? In any case, it sounds like a series of instances where she made poor choices and people were harmed.
she’s been Maga for a long time, I’m sure she just feels entitled like the rest of them. I wouldnt worry about her. she could end up secretary of the interior or something.
I hear the ambassadorship to Greece may be open soon.
She hit her head, missed medication, was tired, so why was she on the flight? Her poor decisions don’t excuse her behavior.
All of this. The head injury alone should’ve kept her from getting on a plane.
If she hit her head hard enough or missed her meds, she was not capable of making the right decisions. Not sure if that happened here, but it may not be so simple as someone who made a bad decision.
I don’t understand the missed meds. You have a chronic condition for which you take medication, so take it, as prescribed. 🤷♀️. For her, it’s not a matter of paying for the medication, it’s not a matter of being a forgetful 80-something (not all elderly, I know), so what’s the issue?
This is probably medication- or MS-induced. Given her medical history, there should have been a competent physician, when she was taken in, to evaluate her mental status.
I’m guessing that was the primary reason she was brought to the hospital.
Yeah, they were trying to do that & she continued kicking people. In the face!
Her lawyer is an idiot. He should’ve just said that they are still gathering facts and that she is terribly sorry and embarrassed and left it at that.
Yes!
It looks like she accidentally tried to kill a large group of people during a flight, but since she is famous and ill, she won’t be punished—because, after all, it’s not her fault that she’s famous and ill.
Several people close to me have MS and none of them have ever tried to open a plane door while in the air or attacked flight staff and others, whether or not they’ve taken their very powerful meds or not. If she wasn’t a famous white lady, she’d be facing terrorism charges.
This. We have to stop excusing the assault of front line workers too. I stepped away permanently from bedside care/acute care (nursing) after COVID because over my 20 years of nursing, I’ve been hit/slapped/punched/kicked more times than I can count (I’ve only been bitten three times though, and one time was by a 2 year old). This is why there is a continual direct personal care worker shortage (across all fields, nurses, CNAs, home health aides, staff in psych related care areas….) because it gets brushed aside so very easily.
Plus….exhaustion+concussion+missed meds….there’s a serious lack of personal responsibility there. There were a lot of choices SHE made that led to the incident
I agree. Nurses get a lot of abuse. Covid patients’ behavior really beat down the people who were working on those front lines and is totally unacceptable. I can’t believe what nurses have been put through. Being scared is one thing, it does not excuse bad behavior. Be grateful and stop playing, people. There are no consequences anymore, especially for assaulting first responders, as you stated. It is disgusting. Thank you for being one of those front line nurses.
I have a friend who has had MS for going on 20 years. I’ve traveled with her multiple times, too. She has never done anything even close to resembling this.
There are SOO many YT videos of people going crazy on planes. Personally I absolutely withdraw into myself on planes. I just want to arrive safely at my destination so I try to disappear. There are so many tiny indignities involved in flying commercial. Especially on coach (which I’m sure she wasn’t). Add in some booze and for some reason people snap. I have no grand theories and zero idea what’s going on with Selma, but nothing is worse than someone on a plane making it all about them. Yeah we’re all uncomfortable, tired, and battling dehydration.
It is really, really offensive that her side is trying to draw MS into her mess.
For sure! Nothing about MS causes violent outbursts, not even switching or missing medications.
straight to jail please
There is no excuse for assaulting flight attendants and nurses. She’s a garbage human being (and an Islamophobe).
In New York, it’s actually a felony (class D: Assault 2nd Degree) to assault an on registered nurse or a licensed practical nurse (and other hospital staff including physicians and aides) and can include up to 7 years in prison. Finally we were protected (lol, we still get assaulted but at least now everyone admits it’s bad to do so) the same way as police officers, fire fighters, and EMTS/paramedics
Only 90 days to 2.5 years max here in Massachusetts.
Registered nurses are freaking heroes, so thank you, Heather.
@Karen not that I’ve heard of anyone actually serving prison time but I do know that there have been successful convictions (and pled down to time served or something) and now they have a felony on their record.
This is just inexcusable behavior. If you’re not in any condition to fly, be responsible and delay your flight. I just read that she was released on bond.
Apparently, alcohol was involved like her last airline incident from five years ago. She’s a mess, she needs help, and needs to be accountable for her hideous behavior.
My daughter is a nurse so I take it kind of personally when people assault health care workers. It’s never OK but at least law enforcement and security people are trained to handle it. I’m sorry if she has mental health issues or addiction, but she’s a grown woman and can choose to seek treatment and get a handle on it. And she endangered her fellow passengers too. I can’t muster any sympathy.
I don’t think people fully understand how common shit like this is with first responders. My husband is a medic and it’s insane how many stories he has of people putting their hands on him, fighting, assaulting, resisting. If it’s a psyche call, he goes in with the expectation that the patient might be combative. This was not that. This was a famous, (likely) drunk white lady throwing a fit on a plane and putting everyone’s safety in jeopardy–and not the first time for Blair either. I don’t think she deserves seven years but she should face real punishment for this.
I can only imagine. That job must be so stressful. And now everything is recorded and subject to the court of public opinion. We all have sleepless nights and bad days at work, but first responders don’t have the luxury of being half present while on shift.
A no fly status would be a fitting punishment for her. But I don’t have hope a rich white lady of some fame will get regular justice.
No fly status is the perfect punishment. She’s shown a pattern of not being able to control herself on flights and you could imagine a scenario where things turn out even worse than they did. She poses a threat to anyone on a plane from customers to staff, straight up.
This isn’t as dismissive as a rich white woman got drunk and rowdy. She did this before. Selma has a history of events and probably needs more help than she is getting or wants. She did it before in 2016 and her lawyers just use the excuse of mixing medication and alcohol. And throwing out her MS diagnosis as a crutch to get away with it. She is clearly still an alcoholic with deep issues.
*June 2016 airplane incident: While flying from Cancún to Los Angeles with her young son and his father, Selma Blair had a disturbing verbal outburst and was removed from the aircraft on a stretcher and taken to a hospital. She later apologized and said she had mixed alcohol with medication, causing her to black out and say and do things she deeply regretted.
Aftermath of the 2016 incident: Selma Blair later said that flight was the last time she drank alcohol. She has publicly discussed her struggle with alcohol and sobriety*
(Obviously not).
This is a person who posts violent, Islamophobic things on social media. No surprise that she might be violent in real life. Also, I know so many people with MS or EDS. There is nothing about either of those medical conditions or the medications for them the has caused anyone in my life to go haywire on a flight or assault other people. People get put on the no-fly list just for joking about violence on a plane. She needs to be on the no-fly list and also do serious jail time.
its another site that won’t be named. But that person heavily implied that she was making her MS seem worse for sympathy and acting roles.
I am not saying she does not have MS but it has not progressed as much as she makes it seem.
I would not put anything past her.
I’m inclined to believe this. My husband has MS and is perfectly normal as long as he goes for his Ocrevus infusions every six months. I know that everyone’s MS is different and you never know when an attack will happen. But usually it causes things to stop working (like a limb or an eye) but it doesn’t cause you to bite someone. She definitely has more going on, and I am sorry for her and her health. Unfortunately for her, she acted out in an insane way and is now facing federal charges. The feds don’t mess around with sentencing and they don’t charge unless they know they can convict.
If she was that badly off…she needed to be in a hospital, not on a plane. People shirking accountability suck, and trying to blame it on her missing ONE dose of medicine is total BS.
I have zero sympathy for this woman. She has shown herself to be a vile racist, Islamaphobe. On top of that – this isn’t her first time in an altercation on a plane – OR biting someone! She was arrested in 2016 for an altercation on a flight. And in her OWN memoir she admit to biting the following people: Kate Moss and Seth McFarlane. She clearly has an anger management problem coupled with an entitlement problem. Additionally – if it had been anyone else who had started an altercation on a plane they would be on the no-fly list. But because she is famous she got out of it and went on to attack two FAs. Maybe this time they will finally ban her from flying.
She’s a terror, but I do feel sorry for her. She needs a mental evaluation and treatment (talk therapy and medication) because what she did was not normal or healthy for anyone (either her victims or herself). She needs an intervention badly. I’m not saying she should not incur penalties for her behavior, but she absolutely needs help (for her medical and mental conditions). She’s a ticking time bomb and she will absolutely hurt others and herself if she doesn’t get it.