The woman caught on camera directing a racist tirade at a wedding photographer and his Indian-American family on an LAX shuttle bus claimed she was egged on before the outburst – and that she gets “agitated very easily” because of a brain injury.
The under-fire United Airlines passenger broke her silence this week as outrage grew after fellow traveler, Pervez Taufiq, posted a video online of her hurling a series of insults at him while he was with his wife and three kids on Nov. 24.
She claimed to Fox 11 on Tuesday that Taufiq pushed her to the side on a line before he had to go the back and called her “white trash,” which Taufiq flatly denied Wednesday night.
“Pushed me to the side to get in front of me and the lady made him go back to the end of the line and he’s talking to his wife, ‘Supposedly they are first-class, obviously with no class and look at the way they’re dressed, they’re white trash,’” said the woman, who was not identified by the station.
In another cut of the video interview on Fox 11, the woman claimed Taufiq was aggressive when everyone was loading into the shuttle.
“He looks over to me and says shut your big effing mouth you white trash (expletive),” she said, adding her husband and Taufiq then exchanged words.
Taufiq told The Post he told her to “shut the f–k up and never speak to his son again,” but only after she told his kid to shut up. He also confirmed the brief confrontation with her husband.
“The rest of it is completely and utterly fabricated,” he said, stressing the word white trash is not in his vernacular.
The woman also blamed a past injury for her actions, denying she’s racist and blamed a series of escalations on the rant.
“And most people know me as a very kind, calm person, but since the brain injury, I can get agitated very easily,” she said.
Taufiq scoffed at the excuse, stating, “brain injuries can maybe cause aggression I guess – I’ve never heard of that – but I never heard of a brain injury causing racism. That would be a new one.”
Taufiq’s video, which he posted to his more than 145,000 followers on Instagram last month, showed the woman bring up his and his family’s ethnicity during her viral rant.
“Your family is from India, you have no respect, you have no rules, you think you can push everyone, push, push, push,” the woman told him as he recorded on Nov. 24. “That’s what you think you are. You guys are f–king crazy.”
She also told him she was going “to record your f–king tandoori ass” while taking out her phone.
“I’m so disappointed as a human being she sees everything that happens and how much negatively around what she did and not a lick of her is apologetic,” Taufiq, who was born in Boston, added Wednesday.
United Airlines told The Post on Monday it had no additional information to share about the incident.
