Woman Behind Viral 'Plane Bae' Twitter Thread Apologizes
The Dallas woman behind the viral Twitter thread about two people flirting on an airplane is apologizing to one of them for invading her privacy.
However, Rosey Blair didn’t delete most of the tweets about the passengers’ seemingly romantic interactions that received coverage from a number of outlets, including HuffPost, BuzzFeed and others.
Blair apologized on Tuesday, saying “The last thing I want to do is remove agency and autonomy from another woman.”
— Rosey Blair (@roseybeeme) July 10, 2018
Blair was on a flight to Dallas when she asked a woman to switch seats with her so she could sit next to her boyfriend.
“We made a joke that maybe her new seat partner would be the love of her life and well, now I present you with this thread,” Blair tweeted last Tuesday.
The female passenger ended up having a connection with her male seatmate, later identified as former soccer pro Euan Holden.
Blair documented all the details of their flight, such as overhearing that the two seatmates were both personal trainers. She also mentioned when they went off to the bathroom at the same time.
Blair’s thread appealed to the romance-starved, amassing over 250,000 retweets and 630,000 likes in a short period of time.
Holden was pleased with the thread, using it to promote himself, as did Blair.
However, the female passenger was reportedly not happy to be identified. Blair made a now-deleted video where she acknowledged this, but still encouraged “sneaky” Twitter users to use their internet skills to identify her anyway, Business Insider reports.
As a result, the woman was reportedly hassled on the internet to the point of deleting her social media accounts.
hey @roseybeeme the plane girl deleted her social after being harassed as a result of your lack of boundaries. winking at your audience a& calling them "sneaky" enough to find her? sis. this isn't cute it's invasive & irresponsible. she doesn't want to be famous. seriously. stop. https://t.co/5WUAIAsRNd
— Franchesca Ramsey (@chescaleigh) July 7, 2018
it's not just about shyness! she was actually being harassed, insulted and attacked! please don't try to milk-and-toast what motivated this poor innocent civillian to back out of social media, this isn't a romance fanfiction pic.twitter.com/07Pbh0QQkZ
— seu menino, victor c (@seumeninovictor) July 6, 2018
In her apology, Blair said watching her fellow passengers’ connection made her so “happy, joyful and overcome with authentic and sincere excitement” that she “could not see the potential exploitative nature of the outcome and my actions.”
Many of the people who’ve read Blair’s apology said they still don’t think she’s really learned from her mistakes.
Apologising now is all well and good but honestly you waited until you'd milked as much positive attention out of it as you could, ignoring all valid attempts to point out the ways in which your behaviour was harmful to the woman in the video.
— Anwen (@Kyatic) July 10, 2018
Kinda hard for me to believe anything you say at this point, because for the past week you’ve been basking in your newfound fame and showing zero empathy. Even this “apology” is more self-serving BS.
— Not Robert Loggia, but an incredible facsimile (@DanMoffTarkin) July 10, 2018
This apology doesn't really focus on the privacy violation, and instead paints the situation as...idk, stealing someone's thunder or something. Isn't the issue more that you shared pictures and details that enabled her to be identified by so many people?
— shysha (@noodleses) July 10, 2018
“It’s now yours” = fail. It was always hers. “ At no point in this apology do you name your wrong, which doesn’t make it much of an apology at all, does it? Name the wrong, be clear and concise, take responsibility, and detail how you’re going to make amends for it.
— Allison Stone (@Spinswebs) July 10, 2018
Blair and Holden did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story indicated Blair had deleted her Twitter thread about the plane saga. In fact, most of those tweets are still on her timeline.
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
