“All the passengers said I did nothing wrong!”
Korean American hip-hop rapper Jin Gates was allegedly kicked off a JetBlue flight for being an “Asian with tattoos”.
In a video on Instagram, Korean American rapper Jin Gates claimed he was kicked off a JetBlue flight to Minnesota because of his tattoos.
In a video posted to Instagram, the rapper alleges that he was removed from a flight to Minnesota prior to takeoff because a flight attendant said that she didn’t “feel safe on the plane” with Gates.
“Minnesota I’m sorry not my fault,” Gates wrote on the Instagram post. “@JetBlue DONT LIKE ASIAN WITH TATTOOS…. we got kicked off the plane because the flight attendant said she don’t feel safe on the plane with us.”
A security guard is seen escorting Gates from the plane in the video. “As u can see even when i got kicked off i was still respectful,” Gates added. “The main supervisor asked everyone around us if we did something wrong or if they heard me being disrespectful all the passengers said i did nothing wrong!!!!”
Gates was scheduled to perform in Minnesota but was forced to cancel because of the incident. The rapper is known for songs including ‘My Girl’; the music video has has over 1.2 million views on YouTube.
However, JetBlue said in a statement that Gates was removed from the plane due to a verbal altercation with a member of the crew.
“The decision to remove a customer from a flight is not taken lightly,” JetBlue said. “In this instance, after the customer started a verbal altercation with our crew member, our team determined the situation risked escalation during flight. The team asked the customers to deplane and their fare was refunded.”
Gates has almost 250,000 followers on Instagram but some seemed skeptical about the rapper’s version of events.
“He must have said or done something to trigger a flight attendant to question if it would be safe to keep Him in the flight or not,” one user wrote.
“If she kicked him off due to his race and tattoos, no it isn’t right,” wrote another user. “Just seems like there is more to this story and I’m so tired of everyone thinking they’re entitled to everything and filming everything.”