Soledad O’Brien Calls BS on YouTuber Adam Saleh’s Story of Being Kicked off Delta Flight

“Apparently woman sitting near my friend tipped off flight attendants he was a youtube star known for pranks,” journalist tweets

Soledad O’Brien called into question YouTube star Adam Saleh’s story of being kicked off a Delta Airlines flight on Wednesday.

“Soooo. I have a good friend on this flight right now. Getting additional details on how this went down. Standby,” O’Brien tweeted Wednesday morning after Saleh’s claim that he was removed from the flight for speaking Arabic hit the internet.

“A LOT still unclear. But apparently woman sitting near my friend tipped off flight attendants he was a youtube star known for pranks,” she continued. “Also people on plane disputing call to mom.”

O’Brien is not the first person to question Saleh’s story. The YouTube star has a history of posting prank videos that are designed to look real. In October, it was revealed that his viral video of a NYPD officer stopping and frisking a pair of Muslim men for wearing Islamic garments was a hoax. And last week, Saleh was called out for posting a fake video in which he allegedly sneaked onto a flight in a suitcase.

In a follow-up statement regarding the event on Wednesday afternoon, Delta said Saleh “sought to disrupt the cabin with provocative behavior, including shouting” after taking multiple eyewitness statements upon landing.

The company continued: “This type of conduct is not welcome on any Delta flight.”

In a video posted online Wednesday morning, Saleh claimed that he and his friend were kicked off the flight after other passengers complained that he was making them uncomfortable by speaking in Arabic while on the phone with his mother.

“It seriously made me cry. I travel a lot, and I never in a million years knew I would experience something like this. I speak to my mom every flight I go on, right before I leave, and my mom only speaks Arabic,” Saleh said in an interview with CBS.

See O’Brien’s tweets below:

Reid Nakamura

TV reporter • reid.nakamura@thewrap.com • Twitter: @reidnakamura

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