Qantas says it will support legal action by one of its flight attendants who Black Eyed Peas frontman Will.i.am accused of being “racist” and “beyond rude” to him during a flight from Brisbane to Sydney, according to 7 News.
WATCH: The Veronicas share footage of themselves being escorted off plane
The rapper was met by police at Sydney Airport on Saturday after he clashed with the staff member, who he claims was “overly aggressive” to him because he couldn’t hear her through his noise-cancelling headphones.
A Qantas spokesman on Monday said the airline would be willing to provide legal support to the flight attendant.
“Absent a retraction, and if the crew member wanted to take the matter further, we’d certainly be willing to provide legal support for them to do this,” the spokesman told multiple media outlets.
On Saturday Qantas said it “completely reject(s)” the allegation that the incident had anything to do with race.
“There was a misunderstanding on board, which seems to have been exacerbated by will.i.am wearing noise-cancelling headphones and not being able to hear instructions from crew,” a spokesman said in a statement.
He wrote: “I’m currently on a flight from Brisbane to Sydney. I’m sorry to say me and my group have experienced they worse service due to an overly aggressive flight attendant. I don’t want to believe she [is] racist, but she has clearly aimed all her frustrations only at the people of colour.”
He said the woman “was beyond rude and took it to the next level by calling the police”. He added: “Thank God the other passengers testified that SHE was out of Control.”
Will.i.am said the reason the police were called is because he “couldn’t hear the PA while making beats on the plane wearing noise canceling headphones.”
On Sunday, The Veronicas appear to have deleted their Twitter account after backing Will.i.am in his incident involving Qantas.
The Veronicas claimed the same flight attendant was involved when they were kicked off a Qantas flight in September.
“We support Will.iam,” they wrote in a since-deleted statement on Twitter. “Sadly this female flight attendant was 1 of 2 attendants involved in our incident with Qantas.
“We feel sickened she was given no reprisal and has instead continued to abuse her position, discriminate, and misuse the full force and intimidation of the Australian Federal Police to her agenda.
“In this case to menace will.i.am and other POC (persons of colour) on this flight.”
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