Actor Alec Baldwin was booted from an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to New York City on Tuesday after some turbulence with a flight attendant.
Baldwin claimed in a tweet from his official Twitter account that he was “reamed” by a flight attendant for playing the scrabble-like mobile phone game ‘Words With Friends.’
“Flight attendant on American reamed me out 4 playing WORDS W FRIENDS while we sat at the gate, not moving. #nowonderamericaairisbankrupt,” Alec Baldwin tweeted after the incident.
The cabin confrontation started when a flight attendant repeatedly asked Baldwin to power down his iPad, while the airplane was preparing to taxi away from the gate.
Baldwin, 53, got up from his seat and demanded the flight attendant’s name so he could file a complaint — and the conflict escalated, a source said.
“Alec loves ‘Words with Friends’ so much that he was willing to leave a plane for it,” his publicist told reporters.
Word of Baldwin’s ejection spread at supersonic speed as other passengers posted on Twitter, apparently committing the same offense as Baldwin.
“On an AA flight at LAX. Alec Baldwin removed from the plane We had to go back to the gate. Terrible that everyone had to wait,” tweeted Michael J. Wolfe, a former president at MTV, who happened to be on the same flight.
Baldwin was quickly re-booked on another American flight. He later updated his followers about his travel plans and wrote, “Now on the 3 o’clock American flight. The flight attendants already look…..smarter.”
At 2:35 p.m. PT American Airlines’ official Twitter account tweeted to the actor, “@AlecBaldwin Mr. Baldwin, we are looking into this. Please DM [Direct Message] us contact information.”
Alec later Tweeted, “Last flight w American. Where retired Catholic school gym teachers from the 1950’s find jobs as flight attendants.”
Baldwin is not the first celebrity to air his grievances on Twitter about being kicked off a flight this year.
In October, singer Whitney Houston was nearly kicked off of a Delta flight when she refused to buckle her seatbelt.
