Olympic sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson posted a series of videos that she claims prove an American Airlines flight attendant harassed her. Still, the way her fellow passengers cheered during her removal from the flight seems to show few agreed with her complaints.
The embattled Olympian posted her video to Instagram in which she immediately accused a flight attendant of “harassing” her when he walked by and let her know it was time to turn electronic items off because the plane was preparing to take off.
“I’m recording me, but you jumped in my video, so I caught you because you jumped in my video. You’re harassing me at this point, so I think you should stop. I think you should stop,” Richardson said in the video.
#shacarririchardson gets kicked off a flight when the flight attendant told her to get off a phone call and put her phone on airplane mode. She started recording a video, refused to stop, yelled at the attendant, abused passengers and the whole flight applauded as she left. pic.twitter.com/Og3OGRcXPw
— PullUpMEDIA (@PillarsPullup) January 22, 2023
In a second video, Richardson posted to her Instagram account. She is seen engaging in a long discussion with the flight crew as they tell her that the captain wants her removed from the flight. Richardson continues to insist she did nothing wrong and felt harassed because the flight attendant “jumped in my video” and put his hand in her face.
She even curses at some of her fellow passengers when they express their frustration with her disruptions.
Ultimately, when she gets up to leave the plane, some of the passengers applaud her removal.
Sha’Carri Richardson kicked off american airline flight pic.twitter.com/A1dfybTyJh
— Breaking Trends News (@btrendsnews) January 21, 2023
Richardson also posted an explanation, still insisting she was in the right.
“Tell me if I’ll be wrong to pursue legal actions against the airline @americanair not only did the man threaten me but also an innocent bystander who simply just wanted a picture with me,” Richardson wrote on the post.
“In the beginning of the video you can hear a Caucasian male state that he doesn’t give a f as a man that male flight attendant is intimidating a woman,” she continued.
“Also, the captain not doing anything to help the situation and this flight attendant has the applause when I exited the plane when I’m pretty serious the disrespect I received would not have happened if I was a one of them,” she added.
“One of them even stated good luck with your ban ( I see he took the time to do some research but not stand up for what’s right) soooo @americanair this flight attendant name was John and he refused to state his last name,” she said.
“However, him and the lady y’all see standing next to him looked me up also if I see videos posted from this flight, watch,” she wrote, concluding, “If I can help just one person not have to deal with a situation like this with an individual like this, I’ll take the heat.”
In a statement, American Airlines said, “We reaccomodated the customer on a later flight and a member of our team has reached out to learn more,” NBC reported.
Richardson has repeatedly assigned a motive of “racism” to things she does not like. And in 2021, she was handed a suspension from competition after she tested positive for marijuana in her system, causing her results for the Olympic trials to be erased.
Richardson was later left off the U.S. Olympic team in Track and Field.
