Before takeoff, one woman on a Delta flight found herself fighting back quiet sobs after catching a glimpse of her seatmate’s hurtful message, lamenting the misery of being squeezed in beside a 'huge woman.'
Vanessa, a TikTokker nearing 5,000 followers, showed up heartbreak-honest on camera, uploading a raw video of her tear-streaked face to a remix of the iconic track “Jump Around.”
Her flight from Tampa to New York City had barely left the runway when Vanessa noticed the irritated stranger beside her firing off a body-shaming text about her to his friends.
One woman on a Delta Air Lines flight began crying quietly in her seat after noticing the person next to her fire off a message, grumbling about being stuck beside a "HUGE woman.” tiktok.com/@soberspouse
“We’ve taken off, and I can’t stop crying. The man next to me, sends one text, ‘urgh HUGE woman sat next to me’ – I saw [because] I have eyes, and now I feel like a prisoner for the next [two] hours,” Vanessa wrote on TikTok.
“Be kind. If you’re feeling so inclined, can you send me some love? I’ve lost 60+ lbs and have actually been feeling really good about myself,” she added.
Filming herself again during the flight, Vanessa was still wiping tears from her eyes when she added a painfully honest note on screen: “flying while fat is hard.”
The flight itself may have been uneventful, but the moment Vanessa glimpsed her seatmate’s text stayed with her. She later opened up about the encounter in an interview with The Mary Sue.
“As I approached my row, I made eye contact with the man in the window seat of my row. I could see the man in the window, visibly sigh and roll his eyes. That is immediately when my radar went up,” she told the outlet.
In a follow-up video, Vanessa called out the man beside her on the Delta flight, saying he was “taking up more of [her] seat than [she] was of his.” REUTERS
Vanessa said the stranger’s text was “right there in front of her face” shortly after she sat down, though some online critics accused her of peeking over her seatmate’s shoulder.
She told the outlet that the man seemed to realize how rude his text was and hurriedly sent a “series of empty messages” to scroll the body-shaming comment out of view.
In a follow-up video posted the day after her flight, Vanessa said she “didn’t need two seats” and pointed out that the man was “actually spilling more into [her] space.”
Vanessa’s TikTok quickly filled with messages of support from new fans rallying around her after the humiliating encounter. @soberspouse/TikTok
Vanessa first shared the video on Nov. 26, and since then it has gone viral—racking up over 1 million views, around 121,000 likes, and attracting a wave of new body-positive fans.
"I’m so glad that this little moment of lemons has turned into so much lemonade for so many people. The amount of kindness that’s been spread and shared is really unbelievable," Vanessa said in a TikTok update, welcoming her flood of new followers.
Vanessa—who goes by “soberspouse” online—runs a family-centered TikTok, sharing everyday moments with her two sons while navigating the challenges of parenting and self-care.
She shared in another video that people’s overwhelmingly positive responses to her story helped “restore [her] faith in humanity.”
