Selma Blair Faces State Felony Counts and a Federal Summons After Delta Flight Disturbance

Selma Blair is due back in a Queens courtroom on Jan. 19, 2027. She faces two felony counts of second-degree assault that grew out of a disturbance aboard a Delta Air Lines flight to New York on Oct. 11. Federal authorities have separately issued her a summons over what happened in the air. Blair, 54, has pleaded not guilty to the state charges. Her representatives say a medical emergency caused the alleged conduct.

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey police were called around 11 p.m. that Sunday to Delta Flight 938, which had landed at John F. Kennedy International Airport from Los Angeles and was parked at a gate. The call concerned “a physically abusive passenger,” according to the agency. Two flight attendants reported injuries, and one was taken to a hospital. Blair was taken into custody and brought to a hospital for evaluation.

A law enforcement official told CNN that one flight attendant was bitten and another was cut, and that officers used plastic restraints to subdue Blair. Air traffic control audio published by the app ATC.com described the injuries as “a bloody nose as well as some bite marks.” A separate transmission said the disruptive passenger may have “bashed her head on the bulkhead.”

The state charges cover what happened after the plane landed. According to the criminal complaint, Port Authority Police Officer Maria Suarez was securing Blair on a stretcher for the trip from the terminal to an ambulance. Blair allegedly freed a leg and kicked the officer repeatedly in the face, neck and chest. The officer said she needed hospital treatment for “substantial” pain and swelling, USA Today reported. A registered nurse helping transport Blair at Jamaica Hospital in Queens said Blair kicked her in the chest.

Both counts involve workers protected under New York law, and each carries up to seven years in prison. A prosecutor told the court that a conviction on the state charges could mean two to seven years. At Blair’s arraignment in Queens Criminal Court on Oct. 12, Judge Indira Khan set bail at $20,000 cash or credit card, or a $60,000 insured or partially secured bond. Blair posted it. The judge also issued an order of protection barring Blair from coming within 100 yards of the nurse or contacting her, the Queens district attorney’s office told USA Today.

The FBI, which investigates assaults aboard aircraft, issued Blair a violation notice for assault within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, a federal law enforcement official told The Associated Press. That matter will be handled in the petty violations court of the federal court in Brooklyn. As of the AP’s report, no date had been set for her appearance there. “As per long-standing DOJ policy, we do not comment on ongoing investigations,” said Sydney Kleinmann, a spokesperson for the FBI’s New York office.

In court, Blair’s attorney, Shawn Barnes, described the incident as a medical crisis. He said she had boarded the flight after long hours on set, fell and hit her head on the plane, and missed several doses of her medication. “We do not believe, your honor, that this is an intentional assault,” Barnes said, according to a pool feed cited by CNN. Page Six, as cited by E! News, quoted him saying, “These factors coupled with the altitude resulted in a state of severe confusion and disorientation.”

Barnes told the court this was Blair’s first arrest. He said that in addition to multiple sclerosis, she has been diagnosed with parkinsonism, a group of movement symptoms marked by tremors and stiffness. Blair disclosed her MS diagnosis in 2018 and has also spoken publicly about dystonia. According to the BBC, Barnes asked the judge to consider Blair’s “body of work” and called her the “gold standard.” The judge replied that Blair should not “get special treatment.”

Early reports said Blair had tried to open an aircraft door. Delta told USA Today it could not corroborate those reports and said the flight had no operational impact. In an Oct. 16 statement to E! News, Blair’s representative pushed back on that report and on online speculation about her health. “There was no attempt to open the door of the aircraft. Selma did not intend to harm anyone,” the statement said. “The suggestion by anyone that Selma does not have multiple sclerosis is outrageous. Her diagnosis has been public since 2018.”

Delta said it “has zero tolerance for unruly or unlawful behavior, as the safety of our customers and crew always comes first,” and referred further questions to law enforcement.

Blair has been on a commercial flight that ended this way once before. In June 2016, she was taken off a flight from Cancun to Los Angeles on a stretcher and hospitalized. She later apologized in a statement to Vanity Fair: “I mixed alcohol with medication, and that caused me to black out and led me to say and do things that I deeply regret.” In her 2022 memoir, “Mean Baby,” she wrote about her struggle with alcohol and her sobriety after that incident.

Groubert began with the air traffic control audio, then spent nearly 20 minutes on the case. “Selma Blair is the poster girl for this channel,” he said. “Celebrity, crime, rehab. She fits all three.”

Groubert said he was not disputing that Blair has MS but argued that the diagnosis does not settle the question of addiction. “But getting MS does not do away with your alcoholism and drug addiction, which she still has,” he said. He did not cite any evidence that Blair is drinking or using drugs. Blair has said publicly that she has been sober since 2016.

His sharpest point concerned strategy. After reading Barnes’ account of the missed medication, Groubert predicted the lawyer would build the defense around it and that it would not survive cross-examination. “This theory of defense by the lawyer is going to be easily dismantled by the prosecution when they just get into the meds that she missed,” he said. In his view, prosecutors will simply ask how missed doses could turn someone violent. He added that published descriptions of MS symptoms say nothing about attacking or biting people, which he said was why he did not believe the medical explanation.

Separately, Groubert argued that celebrity camps frame incidents like this in medical terms mainly for the insurers who bond film productions, rather than for the public. He did not tie that claim to any statement from Blair’s team.

Twice during the segment he urged Blair to enter treatment, both for her health and because, he said, a judge would view it more favorably. He also said he found it hard to imagine her avoiding jail time on these charges.

Blair’s first public appearance after the arrest was at a fan convention. On Oct. 16, four days after her arraignment, she appeared at 90s Con in Connecticut and posed for photos with fans, E! News and Page Six reported. On Oct. 28, Deadline reported that production had wrapped on “Dead at 27,” an independent music thriller in which Blair stars and serves as an executive producer.

The state case returns to Queens Criminal Court on Jan. 19. The AP reported that no date had been set for the federal petty-offense matter in Brooklyn.