A YouTube star known for filming elaborate hoaxes was escorted off a Delta flight on Wednesday morning after he claimed that other passengers complained when they heard him speaking in Arabic.
Adam Saleh, a 23-year-old YouTube star from New York, posted multiple videos to Twitter and Periscope on Tuesday, showing himself being escorted from a plane by Delta flight attendants.
Saleh said in the videos that after passengers heard him speaking Arabic, they “felt uncomfortable” and called flight attendants. However, while it is clear that he was removed from the flight at London’s Heathrow airport, the circumstances leading up to the video – retweeted more than 644,000 times – are not known and cannot be verified.
Saleh has created videos in the past that involved staged scenes on airplanes and with actors playing authority figures.
Saleh was on a flight from London to New York with his friend Slim Albaher, another YouTube personality, who was also escorted off the plane.
“They kicked us off the plane because a lady, because a lot of people felt uncomfortable,” Saleh said. “Delta Air Lines just kicked us out for speaking Arabic.”
Saleh told a British paper that he was calling his mother before his flight from Heathrow on Wednesday morning.
“Usually before I take off I speak to my mom,” he said. “My mom is 66 years old and she only speaks Arabic, so I was speaking to her in Arabic – it was a 30-second phone call.”
After the phone call, he said, he was speaking with Albaher in Arabic and in English when “this lady that was sitting maybe four seats ahead of us turns around and says: ‘Oh my, you need to speak English, I’m feeling very uncomfortable.’” Saleh said after another passenger defended the two, an older man and woman was travelling with also got involved.
Saleh said the captain then asked to speak to them outside, which is when he started filming.
Saleh, who has millions of followers subscribed to his YouTube channels, posted numerous times from an airport in London where he said Delta had asked them to wait. His latest tweet said they had been rebooked on another flight to New York with a different airline after going through the security check a second time.
We got kicked out of a @Delta airplane because I spoke Arabic to my mom on the phone and with my friend slim… WTFFFFFFFF please spread pic.twitter.com/P5dQCE0qos
— Adam Saleh (@omgAdamSaleh) December 21, 2016
