'The entire thing was planned': Delta passengers refute YouTube prankster's claims he was kicked off flight from London to New York for 'speaking Arabic to his mother'
- YouTuber Adam Saleh was escorted off a Delta flight from London to New York
- Claims row began after an American passenger heard him speaking Arabic
- Now fellow passengers have refuted his account, saying Saleh was never on the phone with his mom but was overheard urging his friend to shout in Arabic
- 'The entire thing was planned,' said Roderick Edens whose boyfriend was aboard
- Internet prankster is known for stunts and has previously been forced to reveal he'd faked some videos, such as the Racial Profiling Experiment
- But Saleh's insisted that the latest video is as 'as real as it gets', saying that it was real they would have used their official video camera
YouTuber Adam Saleh's fellow travelers have challenged his claims he was kicked off a Delta flight simply for speaking Arabic to his mother.
Several passengers aboard the flight from London Heathrow to New York yesterday say the internet prankster had planned the stunt from the start.
'The entire thing was planned,' said Roderick J. Edens, who says his boyfriend was sitting in the seat directly in front of Saleh and his friend Slim Albaher.
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YouTuber Adam Saleh's fellow travelers have challenged his claims he was kicked off a Delta flight simply for speaking Arabic to his mother
'He wasn't on the phone with his mom speaking Arabic,' he added, posting a picture of his boyfriend's boarding pass. 'He and his friends were shouting in Arabic with their fists balled up in the air. They were removed from the plane for being loud and disruptive.... then started filming claiming they were victims.
'These guys aren't victims....they are social media wh***s.
Another passenger, named Anthony, posting on Reddit under the username Chain187, also accused Saleh, who has 1.6 million followers on YouTube, of lying about his experience on the flight.
Anthony, who described himself as a mixed race passenger of Jamaican/ British decent, was sat just two rows away from Saleh and Albaher when he claims he heard them planning the stunt.
YouTuber Adam Saleh's fellow travelers have challenged his claims he was kicked off a Delta flight simply for speaking Arabic to his mother
'Neither of them was on any phone call I could hear them talking in plain American English,' he posted on Reddit, along with a picture of his boarding pass.
'The YouTube guy was trying to get his friend to shout something in Arabic which he did a total of 4 times.'
The passenger said said Albaher began loudly shouting the phrase across the plane until fellow travelers complained they were disturbing others.
'He shouted it across the plane and the first two times I thought he was shouting maybe a friend or something,' he said. 'A couple of passengers after the second time said they were making themselves and their young children uncomfortable and could they shut up.
'They told her to shut up and then he shouted it again and her husband started saying it to them. They were filming people's reactions on their phones, I assume for some comedy YouTube video but they were made to delete it.'
Anthony says Saleh was ordered to delete the first footage by a flight attendant
He began filming again, around ten to 15 minutes later, 'once he had been shouting racism.'
The Reddit poster acknowledged that by the time Saleh began filming, people had begun shouting back at him to be quiet, 'but the point is they started it.'
The 23-year-old rapper and YouTube star's account is vastly different.
Adam Saleh, who has 1.6 million followers on the video site, was escorted off the flight from London to New York after the airline says more than 20 other passengers complained about him
Saleh was sat with his friend Slim Albaher who was also kicked off the flight
Saleh and his friend were marched off the flight and interviewed by police at the airport after the incident
Saleh, from Manhattan, claims he and his friend were escorted off the flight to New York after an American female passenger heard him talking in another language and 'felt uncomfortable'.
'She was like, "Oh, my God, you need to speak English, I feel so uncomfortable," Saleh told NBC News.
He added that a man, he suspected was her husband, then stood up and told his friend: 'You need to get chucked off the effing plane.'
'And it just turned into a whole chain reaction, like 10, 15 to 20 people got up, like, 'They need to get off, stuff happened in Germany, I don't feel comfortable here!'' he said.
'I speak to my mom on the phone every flight,' Saleh added to CBS News. 'She only speaks Arabic.'
He later tweeted: We got kicked out of a @Delta airplane because I spoke Arabic to my mom on the phone and with my friend slim... WTFFFFFFFF please spread.'
Other passengers aboard the plane have questioned Delta's actions following the incident.
The Rev. Karen Georgia Thompson, 51, - who acknowledged she only witnessed part of the disruption - told the New York Times that both Saleh and the passengers the prankster accused of racism should have been removed during the investigation.
'If you're going to investigate, how are you going to investigate one side of an altercation?' she asked.
Passenger Chris Ashford, 47, added that the woman had 'overreacted.'
'She heard somebody speaking in Arabic and assumed the worst,' he said.
However, Anthony says that the passengers speaking in defense of Saleh were not close enough to hear how the incident really began.
They simply overheard Saleh 'shouting racism' after starting the row.
'When you shout racism if people only hear that word they will defend you, I probably would have if I had missed all of the start,' he said. 'I'm not saying those people were right but he was giving as good as he got and none of it was racist or against Islam.'
Other passengers looked shocked and uncomfortable by the entire incident
Saleh complained that some passengers had waved goodbye (pictured) as he was escorted off the plane
He added that there were other people on the plane speaking Arabic and 'no-one said a word to her.'
Soledad O'Brien, who had a friend on the same flight as Saleh, tweeted yesterday that 'A LOT still unclear' about the incident 'but apparently woman sitting near my friend tipped off flight attendants he was a youtube star known for pranks.'
'Also people on plane disputing call to mom,' she added.
'Some people really suffer from racism and he is exploiting that for YouTube views and media coverage,' Anthony said. 'He cause(sic) a problem, made it worse and then used racism to make himself look a hero.'
Delta said in a statement yesterday that Saleh and Albaher were removed because they had been shouting and disrupting the cabin. The airline said more than 20 passengers had complained about them.
'The customers who were removed sought to disrupt the cabin with provocative behavior, including shouting.
'This type of conduct is not welcome on any Delta flight. While one, according to media reports, is a known prankster who was video recorded and encouraged by his travelling companion, what is paramount to Delta is the safety and comfort of our passengers and employees.
'It is clear these individuals sought to violate that priority.'
The New York internet star shot to fame through his prank channel, but has had to reveal that some of his biggest 'pranks' were actually staged.
Saleh was even forced to make a grovelling apology over his most infamous hoax - the anti-police 'Racial Profiling Experiment' video - that claimed US officers had abused him over his religion.
And just last week, he filmed a fake video of himself, supposedly flying to Sydney inside a suitcase. The footage was later debunked by Melbourne Airport.
But in a statement, released after Saleh arrived back in New York yesterday, he insisted this time, it was real.
Saleh later told the media that the video couldn't be fake, because they didn't have their official video camera on them.
'If we were doing a joke or a prank, we would have our official camera. We had our phone camera to pull out,' he told NBC News. He added that his friend later pulled out a professional camera afterward to film the aftermath. 'My life isn't a prank.'
Despite the dramatic video, many have questioned the authenticity of the online prankster's claims
'Yes, we're pranksters, and it sounds like 'The Boy Who Cried Wolf', but today you can clearly see it's as real as it gets.'
He also accused the airline of racism, adding: 'Delta has been called out previously for racial matters. What they did was wrong and we deserve to speak up about this and not let this happen again.'
Video of Saleh being kicked off the plane, filmed by the YouTuber, has since been retweeted more than 800,000times. The video has been seen more than 400,000 times on his channel.
During the footage, Saleh was seen confronting fallowing passengers, shouting: 'I spoke a word and you said you feel uncomfortable. Why are you guys doing that?' he yelled at the men behind him.
'Just because I spoke a different language. We spoke a different language on the plane and now we're getting kicked out. This is 2016.
'Delta Airlines are kicking us out because we spoke a different language. 'You guys are racist.'
In another video, filmed in the airport, Saleh says the incident 'made me feel like I was a terrorist'.
Saleh and his friend were marched off the flight and interviewed by police at the airport after the incident. However, neither were charged and they were both re-booked on another Delta flight home to New York City.
Saleh shot to fame on YouTube in 2012 as internet prankster, but many of his biggest pranks have since turned out to be fake.
His most notorious hoax, the anti-police 'Racial Profiling Experiment', which was viewed more than 200,000 times, was so controversial it hit headlines worldwide.
In the video, Saleh and a friend arguing in front of a cop while dressed in Western clothes. The cop just ignores them.
Then the pair return in Islamic-style clothing and begin once more to argue in front of an uniformed police officer.
This time they are shouted at, pinned against a wall and frisked.
Saleh later admitted that the whole incident was staged, with an actor dressed as a policeman.
It caused fury among Muslim groups in the US who decried it as a 'cheap publicity' stunt by Saleh and warned that it would lead to genuine harassment being dismissed in future.
Last week, Saleh made headlines after he claimed he'd squeezed into a tiny suitcase and illegally flew in the baggage hold from Melbourne to Sydney.
Saleh later posted several videos from London Heathrow airport expressing his shock at his treatment
Saleh's videos sparked outrage online where thousands began tweeting to #BoycottDelta
Video, posted on his channel, showed Saleh's friends zipping him into a suitcase, wheeling him to the automated check-in area and paying the overweight fee, before the case disappears down the conveyor belt.
He can be heard saying: 'I am so scared, I don't know if I'm going to survive'.
Melbourne Airport has since, thoroughly debunked the stunt as hoax, saying surveillance footage proves that Saleh boarded the flight normally.
Upon arrival in Sydney, Saleh climbed back into the suitcase, which his friends placed him on the luggage carousel before they filmed him climbing out of the bag, claiming he'd been there all along.
'While this video is clearly a publicity stunt, it promotes behaviors that are dangerous and life threatening,' Melbourne Airport told news.com.au.
Saleh has not commented on the airport's statement.
DailyMail.com has reached out to Saleh for comment.
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