Actor says Southwest kicked her off California flight over ‘slut-shaming’ outfit incident

Wilfredo Lee/AP

An actor says she was kicked off a Southwest Airlines flight this week in Sacramento after she attempted to stand up for a passenger she alleges was “slut shamed” by an airline employee due to her outfit.

Melinna Bobadilla, who according to IMDb has appeared in episodes of the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black” and “Gentefied,” and starred in the 2020 HBO Max short film “Para Rosa,” aired her complaint Monday in a series of tweets that quickly went viral.

“Hey friends just got pulled off a @SouthwestAir flight bc I advocated for a young woman being shamed and harassed by an employee for wearing a tank top that was deemed too revealing,” Bobadilla tweeted.

According to Bobadilla, a Southwest employee approached a passenger on the plane and made her wear a sweater to cover up.

Bobadilla said she then asked the employee what rule the passenger was breaking, and that the employee responded that some people found the top she was wearing, which the employee called a corset rather than a tank top, to be “offensive.”

“I then told the employee that I felt threatened and offe(nded) by the man directly behind me wearing a ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ shirt, and she did not care,” Bobadilla wrote. “Let’s Go Brandon” is a political slogan, code for a profane criticism of President Joe Biden.

Bobadilla in subsequent tweets said she was escorted off the plane.

Following a Twitter reply from a Southwest customer service representative asking her to send a direct message with more information, Bobadilla said she would prefer to handle the matter over the phone, demanding an official apology from Southwest and reimbursement for the flight.

She also said she is “seeking legal counsel.”

The flight departed from Sacramento International Airport, according to Bobadilla’s thread.

“The raggedy folks at @SouthwestAir in Sacramento disrespected two women of color, endangered one by needlessly calling the cops, and went out of their way to protect a conservative white man,” Bobadilla wrote in the final tweet of her thread. “Yup that tracks.”

The airline confirmed it denied a passenger from boarding before takeoff during a Monday flight.

“On Monday, a Southwest employee discretely resolved a situation with a customer prior to boarding,” Southwest Airlines wrote in an emailed response to The Sacramento Bee.

“Then, unprompted, a separate passenger began expressing her opinion about the situation and directing negative comments toward Southwest employees and other customers. After multiple Southwest employees attempted to deescalate the situation with the separate passenger, the airline denied boarding to the individual for continued disruptive behavior.

“All other customers traveled on the flight as scheduled. ... Although passenger disagreements may arise at times, we do not tolerate any form of harassment or unruly behavior aimed at our employees or customers.”

The woman who was the subject of the outfit complaint also posted about the incident on Twitter and TikTok. The woman, named Jacy, posted photos and videos showing the top she was wearing on the flight, writing in one caption that she was “dress coded” on a Southwest flight even though her “torso (was) fully clothed.”

In the TikTok video, Jacy is seen wearing a salmon-colored top and holding a pink sweater she said an airline employee gave her.

A page on the Southwest website calls the airline’s dress code “relaxed and casual,” and that passengers are “expected to present a clean, well-groomed, and tasteful appearance,” but those terms are not further defined, and there is no written policy for how the airline handles dress code violations.

Bobadilla’s Twitter thread circulated widely, with thousands of retweets and nearly 50,000 “likes” as of Wednesday morning. The passenger’s TikTok video had more than 300,000 views. Bobadilla has since made her Twitter profile private.

Similar incidents have been reported in recent years. Bobadilla retweeted a news story from 2020 in which a 22-year-old woman, Kayla Eubanks, wrote in tweets that Southwest Airlines initially barred her from boarding a flight at New York’s LaGuardia Airport because she was wearing a halter top.

Eubanks wrote that she was ultimately allowed on the plane after an airline employee lent her a T-shirt.

A Southwest spokesperson said the airline apologized to Eubanks and issued her a refund, BuzzFeed News reported at the time.

Eubanks, who is Black, told BuzzFeed News that she believed Southwest’s dress code policy and selective enforcement of it open the door for discrimination.