When plus-sized model and positive body influencer Natalie Hage took a plane from Dallas to L.A. last week, it was supposed to be just another flight to a modelling gig.
Instead, the model found that she had become the target of body shaming when she witnessed her seatmate texting hurtful comments about her weight to a friend of his.
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But rather than stay silent, the 30-year-old had a plan: she would take photos of his text messages with her phone and then confront the man (whose name is Eric) with her evidence, all while getting the interaction on video.
And that’s exactly what she did.
“I’m shaking right now,” Hage wrote on her Instagram account. “As soon as I sat down, the gentleman on my left began loudly huffing, sighing and readjusting himself in his seat. I see him furiously texting and then purposefully turning the phone away from me. So, naturally, next time he texts, I take a look. The texts were about me and I’m almost positive he took photos of me. Not only were they texts about me, but they were really mean and ugly, with even the recipient named ‘Linda’ chiming back with shaming retorts.”
“Hopefully she didn’t have any Mexican food,” the recipient on the other end of the text messages wrote.
“I think she ate a Mexican,” the man wrote back. “If the news reports a DFW Airbus A321 leaving the runways without rotating, that would be my flight.”
“He then proceeded to say he’s leaving a neck mark on the window because he’s so smashed against the wall,” Hage said. “From the photos, you can see I’m not in his space.”
According to Hage, there were several more texts commenting on her weight between the man and the recipient of the text messages.
And when Hage tried to ask the other man to her right to switch seats with her because of what the man was saying, Hage said the man laughed and refused.
But Hage didn’t cower at the situation. After thinking about the type of message she would be sending by not speaking up for herself, she decided to take action.
“I built my platform on telling people that they have worth and dignity no matter what,” Hage told Global. “I felt like if I didn’t say something to this man, I would regret it. There’s been so many times in my life where someone has treated me poorly and I just let it happen because I was afraid of what they might say.”
So when the flight had come to an end, Hage confronted the man. Hage told Global News that she had waited to the end of the flight, so as not to cause a disturbance.
“I was feeling so calm and collected because I had the whole flight to think about it,” she said. “I knew if I wanted to get my point across, I had to be articulate. I didn’t want myself to get worked up and to stumble. I wanted to be strong in confronting him.”
In the video, Hage begins by introducing herself to the man before telling him about what she had experienced.
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“I couldn’t help but notice that before we took off you were sending really horrible text messages about me to somebody,” she said calmly.
At first the man denies her claims, until she begins reading back what he had texted. At first, he apologizes and said he had been drinking.
When Hage continued to challenge the man, he lashed out again by asking her if she felt that she should be sitting in an exit row which others would need to use in case of an emergency.
She then explained to the man that the seat she was given on the flight was not her decision, but rather the decision of the company she works for. She also informed the man that she was a model on her way to a photo shoot and actually works out five times a week.
The man apologized once more, and then asked Hage if he could buy her dinner “for the trouble.”
While Hage didn’t feel the man’s apology was sincere, she says she can only hope it was.
“I think he was sorry he got caught, for sure,” Hage said. “I really hope he thinks twice about how he will treat others from now on.”
Hage also hopes that others will take away somewhat of a lesson of their own from her encounter.
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