Tess Holliday says the flight attendant told her she was

Model Tess Holliday is speaking out about a recent flight experience in which she says a flight attendant told her to lose weight after he indirectly called her “very, very, very big.”

The curvy model recalled the event on her TikTok account, saying she was traveling with her 9-year-old son, Bowie, on a United Airlines flight when she got up to go to the bathroom. While in the bathroom, Holliday said his hip accidentally pressed the flight attendant’s call button.

An assistant knocked on the bathroom door and the two began talking when the model came out. Although the conversation started well, Holliday told her followers that things have changed.

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The man began talking about his own sister, whom he called “a very, very, very large woman” and estimated that she was “probably” Holliday’s size. He told a story about how his sister struggled with her weight while flying recently and said he “agreed” that she “needed to lose weight because she was so big.”

The flight attendant proceeded to tell the 40-year-old woman she saw traveling with her son and that if she “cared” about her son, she would “do something” about his weight.

During the “crazy fatphobic” conversation, Holliday said he also told her that his German wife, who “weighed less than 100 pounds,” was very thin because she “doesn’t eat any of the processed garbage in America.”

He also said that Holliday’s “main problem is in his belly region” and that belly fat is a “killer.”

“You don’t say things like that to people,” he said. “He said many other things: the conversation lasted too long.”

United Airlines declined to comment.

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“I didn’t really know what to say,” Holliday said toward the end of his video. She said people had told her, “You should have said or done this,” but the model explained that “I was trying to be polite because I’m traveling with my son.”

Holliday has been open about her experience as a plus-size person and model. She recently shared that she doesn’t think brands are hiring as many plus-size models because the body positivity movement is no longer trendy.

“I think, collectively, our society has moved to a place where thinness is fashionable and body positivity and curves are no longer popular for many brands,” Holliday said during an appearance on “Good Morning Britain” last week.

“That’s what we’re seeing reflected on the runways, in magazines and in the media,” she said, adding that her “plus-size colleagues around the world… aren’t actually working. It’s been really disheartening to see.”