Selma Blair blames her mid-flight punching and biting outburst on medication… but this is what everyone who knows her dark past is thinking: MAUREEN CALLAHAN

Published: 19:21 EDT, 14 October 2026 | Updated: 19:21 EDT, 14 October 2026

Actress Selma Blair’s arrest for allegedly attempting to open a plane door mid-air and violently assaulting four people has raised more questions than answers.

Especially as this isn’t her first outburst on a commercial flight.

One: How is this woman not on a permanent no-fly list?

As expected, Blair’s defense attorney, Shawn Barnes, has blamed her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis – a condition she says she was diagnosed with in 2018 and a defense that seems dubious at best, cynical at worst.

Blair, 54, stood before a judge on Monday wearing her best tearful expression of fear and remorse – doubtless crying only for herself, not the police officer she allegedly kicked while being transferred to an ambulance, screaming her head off; or the nurse she allegedly kicked at Jamaica Hospital; or the Delta crew member whose nose she allegedly bloodied; or the other she reportedly bit.

One of those flight attendants was injured severely enough on Sunday that she had to be hospitalized, according to police. And that’s to say nothing of the planeload of passengers she surely terrified during this alleged violent attack and her harrowing attempt to open one of the plane’s doors.

Blair, 54, stood before a judge on Monday wearing her best tearful expression of fear and remorse

Blair’s defense attorney, Shawn Barnes, has blamed her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis

‘Violence’ is ‘not who she is,’ according to Barnes.

Joshua Reitzas, Blair’s second lawyer, told the judge that because she is an actress – nay, a movie star – her esteemed work in such films as Cruel Intentions, Legally Blonde and Hellboy should not only give her a pass, but that the rest of us should admire her.

‘Consider her body of work and what she’s done for people,’ he said. ‘This is someone we should look up to. She is the gold standard.’

Right here – this is why celebrity culture is dying. What she’s done for people? Selma Blair is not Mother Teresa.

The only thing Blair has ‘done for people’ is allegedly behave like a public menace and threat to safety while appearing to hide behind a medical diagnosis.

Truly, no one cares that she is an actress. We only care about our ability to fly without being terrorized by another passenger.

Judge Indira Kahn, who denied a request to remove Blair’s handcuffs during arraignment, wasn’t having it.

‘Ms Blair should not get special treatment because she is a celebrity,’ she said.

Blair’s attorneys are attempting to explain away this alleged violent assault – sustained over a span of hours – by blaming their client’s MS and missed medications.

‘This was not an intentional assault,’ said Barnes. ‘Ms Blair missed several doses of… a powerful medication that controls severe neurological symptoms.’

As far as I’m concerned, even if all of that is true, Selma Blair is still to blame here. It is her responsibility to take her medications, especially if missing them allegedly puts the flying public at risk.

Multiple sclerosis is a largely neurodegenerative disease that physically weakens the sufferer. Blair’s condition appears to have had its ups and downs.

In 2022, she appeared on Dancing With The Stars, looking fit and healthy. During her first performance, she held a cane – which she then dramatically left behind as she performed a Viennese waltz with her partner, earning a score of 28 out of 40 points.

After five nights, Blair withdrew from the competition, citing her condition. ‘It’s way too much for the safety of my bones… so I could do extensive damage,’ she told her partner during rehearsals.

Whether Blair’s doctors warned her against entering a dance competition prior to the start of the DWTS season is unclear. One would imagine that someone suffering, as Blair has spoken of publicly and often, would have consulted with their team of specialists as to the wisdom of even accepting the DWTS offer.

Meanwhile, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Andy Kiernan, seems to have cast doubts on Blair’s defense.

As the Daily Mail exclusively reported, Kiernan posted a contradictory message to his Instagram on Tuesday. ‘Pray for Selma’, he wrote. ‘She has a good heart. She hasn’t yet got the help she needs.’

If Kiernan is right, it is possible that Blair has needed help for a long time – and not necessarily just for MS.

Her other mid-air outburst was also on a Delta flight, while traveling from Mexico to Los Angeles in 2016 with her then four-year-old son, Arthur, and his dad, Jason Bleick.

Blair reportedly had a glass of wine and said, out loud: ‘He burns my private parts. He won’t let me eat or drink. He beats me. He’s going to kill me.’

There was no evidence that Blair was actually being abused.

Instead, she was carried off that plane in a stretcher and said, after the fact, ‘I mixed alcohol with medication, and that caused me to black out.’

The 2016 incident and this latest one share some similarities.

That said, ‘missing her medication’ cannot be blamed for what happened nearly a decade ago.

In 2022, Blair appeared on Dancing With The Stars, looking fit and healthy

After five nights, she Blair withdrew from DWTS, citing her condition

Blair has since also claimed to have dystonia, a neurological disorder, and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a connective tissue disorder. Her attorneys in this latest case said Blair has Parkinsonism and suffered a head injury during her outburst.

And that’s not to mention her lifelong habit of biting people – not just flight attendants! In her 2022 memoir, Mean Baby, Blair wrote about biting Sienna Miller, of whom she writes, ‘I couldn’t begrudge her for any part she was winning over me.’

Really? Biting Miller is a strange way to convey that.

Blair also wrote about biting Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy and supermodel Kate Moss, all upon their first meeting.

Moss, she bit twice. And the second time, Moss was not amused. ‘That really f***ing hurt!’ Blair quotes Moss as saying.

Hopefully, the New York criminal justice system, Delta airlines and the FAA will make Blair metaphorically hurt for this mid-air outburst.

Because for all her tears in court – which she walked into and out of unaided, it should be noted – Blair doesn’t seem to be taking this seriously.

In fact, she’ll apparently still be attending a gathering called 90s Con in Connecticut this weekend.

‘Selma Blair will be joining us at 90s Con as planned. See you there!’ the organizers posted on Instagram Tuesday.

Hey – at least she won’t be flying across state lines.