This was of course a publicity-generating hoax by a site that milked it for a ton of traffic (6 million visitors in 24 hours), and the actress playing the girl started getting calls from agents and scored interviews on CBS News and Askmen.com. After word got out that it was a fake, disappointed people started clinging on to the Steven Slater story instead.
A day before the HPOA/HOPA hoax, JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater lost his shit at a difficult customer, said goodbye over the plane's PA system and exited the plane on an emergency slide. The plane had already landed, or it would have been more badass.
"I have the weirdest feeling like I've forgotten something."
People everywhere adopted him as a folk hero. They ignored the fact that releasing the safety slide was dangerous and kind of inconvenient to all the other passengers who weren't being assholes and cost the company tens of thousands of dollars, and the fact that he apparently had a substance abuse problem, and was suffering from depression.
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