Woman who stuck earring on sleeve to stop plane passenger invading her space speaks out

Unless you've got the money for first class or a private jet, you need to consign yourself to getting pretty close to whoever you're next to on a flight.

Naturally, if this is your family or friends, you don't mind getting up close and personal but sometimes it can be pretty grating when you end up next to someone who likes to recline their seat or stretch their legs out.

When you've maybe been up since 3am to get your flight and make sure you make it through security, or perhaps still hungover from the holiday's exploits or 6am airport pint, then our patience is probably also wearing a little thin.

Which is perhaps one of the factors in why Kadia Tubman decided to install an earring into her sweater sleeve on a flight, to ensure that a passenger simply known as Otto, couldn't get too close.

He first brought attention to the matter after posting on X about the unusual experience, writing: "Met a very passive aggressive passenger on @Delta today. Immediately angry about my using the armrest before takeoff.

"She installed an earring on her sleeve to poke me. I didn’t mind 'till the turbulence when it stabbed me. I calmly asked her to remove it, she wouldn’t, and told me I was taking up too much of my seat 'cause I’m a man."

He later questioned: "This legal? Also, how do people get like this?"

However, Tubman has now come forward to share her version of events, where she claims that he touched her multiple times which prompted her to use the earring as an unorthodox defence mechanism.

In a lengthy caption on Instagram, she explained that Otto was working on his laptop when she got on the plane, and he had his arm on the middle armrest, but she let it be because he was working.

She wrote: "When I settled into the aisle seat I leaned against the arm rest but didn't put my arm on it because he was all over it.

"He took up more space, past the arm rest boundary, and kept rubbing against my arm. He kept lifting it up and waking me up. I politely told him and demonstrated how his arm was hitting me. He said there was no space. I said I understood and that's why I let him take up the entire arm rest to work.

"He moved over but after a little while he shifted back. I pointed it out once again and fell asleep...until I was awoken by his arm."

It was around 20 minutes before landing that Tubman became fed up with Otto's alleged actions and she took off her earring and put it onto her sleeve, with the sharp end poking him if he got close.

Although he claims it was turbulence that led to him getting poked, she made it clear that he would have had to have been extremely close to get his arm poked, and suggested that the picture he took emphasises that.

Eventually he shifted position and left before either of them had the chance to speak with a captain.

In a he-said, she-said situation like this, the internet is often torn on who to believe, but it certainly got a lot of people talking, with millions of views on their collective social media posts.

"Her arm is in her lap. If the earring poked you then you’re definitely stretched into her space and are in the wrong," one person replied to Otto's post.

Another wrote: "If you were close enough to be poked by that earring then you’re the problem lol."

LADbible has contacted Kadia for comment.