Eve J Marie, a 26-year-old Playboy Playmate and ‘model’ claims flight attendants on a recent Southwest Airlines flight threatened to have her kicked off the plane because she was wearing a low-cut leopard print outfit. In the end, despite being accused of breaking Southwest’s dress-code policy, Marie was allowed to remain onboard after one flight attendant loaned her a jumper to wear over her chest.
The incident comes less than a month after another woman on a different Southwest Airlines flight was denied boarding because her low-cut top was considered “lewd, obscene, and offensive” according to a gate agent that cited the airline’s dress code policy.
Kayla Eubanks claimed a Southwest employee “practically did cartwheels to ensure that I wouldn’t get on this plane y’all. I was held at the gate for 30 minutes because of my shirt.” In the end, Eubanks was allowed onboard after the Captain loaned her a t-shirt to wear over her top.
In this latest incident, Marie told Jam Press and the Daily Mail (where you can judge the outfit for yourself) that she had just got off one Southwest plane where no one had batted an eyelid at what she was wearing when she faced being denied boarding on her second leg of the trip from Dallas to Oklahoma.
“When they threatened to remove me off the plane if I didn’t have a change of clothes,’ Eve told Jam Press. “I felt completely humiliated, embarrassed and highly offended,” she continued.
She says that she’s been a loyal Southwest customer for years and even in the midst of a global pandemic has managed to take 32 trips with the airline so far this year and spends in excess of $90,000 with Southwest every year.
‘So even as being a loyal customer with them, I felt like the other women on the plane were judging me based on my attire and they were saying my breasts are too large. Well, that’s something I can’t help.’
Describing Southwest’s treatment of her as “discriminatory”, Marie said one African American flight attendant allowed her to wear her work jumper across her chest so that she could remain on the flight with her seven-year-old son.
Southwest’s official policy says anyone “engaging in lewd, obscene or patently offensive behavior, including wearing clothes that are lewd, obscene or patently offensive,” can be denied boarding. Flight attendants and gate agents are allowed to interpret their meaning of that policy as they see fit in the circumstances.
Marie says she contacted Southwest after the incident and they offered her $100 in credit but she would like a public apology from the airline, as well as a clearer dress code policy that would prevent future incidents of this kind in the future.
In 2018, a self-proclaimed travel expert and journalist was denied boarding on a Saudia Airlines flight for falling foul of the carriers dress code policy. Unbeknown to Jordan Bishop, Saudia actually bans passengers from wearing shorts onboard its flights, although the written guidance was little more opaque.
The national carrier for the ultra-conservative Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the airline says passengers should be “clothed in a manner that is in line with public taste or not offensive to other passengers.” Short, it would appear, could be offensive to other passengers.
What counts as as “lewd, obscene or patently offensive” in Saudi Arabia, however, would most likely be very different to a Southwest Airlines flight in 2020.
Southwest has been contacted for comment.
