Award winning film director, comedian and author Kevin Smith has picked up a new label thanks to Southwest Airlines – ‘too fat to fly’.
Smith boarded a flight in Oakland on Saturday that was bound for Burbank. All was going according to plan until he was deemed too obese to make the journey. The airlines went so far as to call him a risk to the safety of others before they ejected him from the plane. A flight attendant named Suzanne approached him and relayed a message from the cockpit. According to Smith, “She told me Captain Leysath deemed me a ‘safety risk.'”
Before he exited the plane, Smith puffed out his cheeks in an exaggerated pose and captured a photo for posterity and for use as a future ‘twitpic’.
Southwest eventually had a change of heart and booked him on a later flight and gave him a $100 airline voucher but the damage was done. The disgruntled passenger did what anyone would do under the circumstances — he took his case to his Twitter page, where the four-letter words were flying fast and furious.
Southwest has apologized for getting it wrong after receiving a deluge of hate mail from Smith’s 1.6 million Twitter followers. According to TMZ, the masses actually brought down the Southwest website at one point on Sunday.
More Kevin Smith photos below:
Photos: WENN