Selma Blair’s team denies she meant to harm anyone on Delta flight

A spokesperson for actress Selma Blair said Friday that she suffered a medical emergency aboard a Delta Air Lines flight and “did not intend to harm anyone,” offering the first extended defense since her arrest at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Sunday.

In a statement shared exclusively with PEOPLE, the spokesperson said the public account of the incident has rested almost entirely on a police statement and a decade-old headline. The spokesperson said there was no attempt to open the aircraft door, that Ms. Blair had never been arrested before that night, and that “much more” of the story had yet to be reported.

The statement also said Ms. Blair, 54, who has been public about her multiple sclerosis diagnosis since 2018, has pseudobulbar affect, a neurological condition secondary to her MS. The spokesperson said it affects how a medical episode appears to people who do not know her, and that authorities separated her from her service dog.

Authorities said she was detained around 11 p.m. after the flight from Los Angeles reached the gate, following accusations that she injured two flight attendants. She later pleaded not guilty to two counts of second-degree assault, accused of kicking a Port Authority police officer and a nurse after leaving the plane. She was released on $20,000 bail and is due back in court Jan. 19.

Her attorney, Shawn Barnes, told the judge Monday that Ms. Blair had missed several doses of medication, worked long hours on a set before the flight and hit her head aboard the plane. “We do not believe, your honor, that this is an intentional assault,” he said.

The FBI also issued Ms. Blair a notice charging her with assault over her conduct on the flight, according to a federal law enforcement official who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Those federal charges will be handled in federal court in Brooklyn, and no appearance date has been set.

Delta said it does not tolerate unruly or unlawful behavior and puts customer and crew safety first.

It was not Ms. Blair’s first flight-related incident. In 2016, she apologized after being removed from a flight from Cancun to Los Angeles, saying she had mixed alcohol with her medication.