A video showing an influencer shouting at staff on an American Airlines plane caused division on social media this week.
Posted by Kobe Peter Nguyen on Thursday (August 7), the video shows him being scolded by a flight attendant just three days prior. The plane was traveling from Phoenix to San Francisco, and Nguyen claimed that he was falsely accused of smoking a vape in the lavatory. It is unclear from the video whether Nguyen was vaping. He does apologize to the flight attendant repeatedly in the recording, for unknown reasons.
"I was actually sitting on the toilet and you were opening the door," he said to start off the video below.
"I don't care," the attendant says. "You can keep saying you're sorry, but I care about all these passengers."
After acknowledging that she's being recorded on Nguyen's phone, he tries to grab it before he pulls away.
"You're not allowed to do that," he tells her, claiming that the woman assaulted him.
"She just put her hands on me," he continues. "She tried to grab my phone. ... I have a lawyer. I am a lawyer. I'm sorry, but you do not put your hands on me."
Nguyen continued by telling the woman that he has 25,000 followers that will watch the alleged assault, and demanded that she apologize so the video wouldn't be posted.
Although the woman apologized, Nguyen said that he'd "call the police" once they landed. Nguyen went on to berate the woman, obstructing her from collecting trash from other passengers.
Days later, Nguyen posted on Instagram that he was "seeking accountability" from the airline.
"While I was in the lavatory, the door was unlocked and opened twice without my consent, leaving me exposed to other passengers. My phone was taken from me, and my recording was stopped," he wrote in the caption.
"Days later, before another flight, I was pressured into deleting footage related to the incident in order to be allowed to board," he continued.
Nguyen called the experience "deeply distressing" and has "issued a formal demand" for an apology from American Airlines.
The incident is one of numerous that have been publicized about passengers having in-flight meltdowns. In the case of American Airlines, examples include a man urinating in a plane aisle and a different influencer arguing with staff.