Strictly Come Dancing host Josh Widdicombe has revealed he was hit in the back by an angry plane passenger after an innocent gesture. The 43-year-old presenter shared the story of a row that erupted on a flight home from Greece.
Widdicombe said he put his foot on the edge of an empty seat to tie his lace while waiting to use the toilet. The person in the next seat told him her husband had been sitting there. He apologised, but the apology did not go down well.
Passenger 'whacked' him
Speaking on the Parenting Hell podcast, Widdicombe said: 'It was on the plane back from Greece. I went up to the toilet at the front of the queue, and you know the front seats. There was someone at the window seat, and then there were two empty seats, so I perched on the arm of the end empty seat, and I looked down, and my shoe was undone, so I put it up on the corner of the seat.'
He added: 'The woman at the end said "Excuse me, that's my husband's seat", so I was like, "Fine, sorry I've made my mistake, put my foot down." She doesn't expect the apology; she tries to continue telling me off.'
Widdicombe alleged: 'The guy comes out of the loo. He sits down, and then he goes past me and whacks me in the back as he goes past me. You know like Richard Ashcroft in that Urban Hymns video, like a footballer off the ball and then he goes past me and goes "Did you put your foot on my seat?" He was getting napkins to wipe his seat down.'
He said flight attendants went over to check on the man, and one crew member remarked: 'There's one on every flight, isn't there?' Widdicombe added: 'The air steward starts to confide me in, so I start to dig into this and start laughing away with the air steward.'
Fan encounter and ongoing tension
A woman then approached him saying she was a fan, which he called 'glorious'. But later, when he went to the toilet again, she was still staring at him. He said: 'An hour later, I hear the stewards saying, "He's still cleaning the seat with his napkin", it's been an hour! He might be germophobic, I suppose.'
Widdicombe recalled worrying the man would 'confront' him, calling it a 'weird' situation.
