As we’ve discussed, Netflix just released a six-minute preview of the new season of Wednesday. One of my favorite parts of the clip is Wednesday Addams going through security at Newark Airport (who knew how prescient setting a horror show at Newark would end up being, amirite?). After unloading all manner of instruments (weapons) Wednesday has packed to use against the Kansas City Scalper, what is the item TSA agents end up dinging her for? A sunscreen bottle larger than three ounces! As someone who had to surrender my own sunscreen at JFK just a few months ago, the bit spoke to me. This preamble brings us to Ellen Pompeo. The Grey’s Anatomy star just revealed to Travel + Leisure that on a recent flight, TSA agents detained her for an hour while they called in the bomb squad… to inspect her bag of sunflower seeds! What, were they worried she bought them from the same dealer who sold Jack his beanstalk beans?
“I had a bag of sunflower seeds, like organic sunflower seeds from Erewhon, so they were probably the most expensive sunflower seeds money can buy,” she told Travel + Leisure in an interview published May 29. “They literally held me for an hour, and they brought the bomb squad in.”
And Pompeo couldn’t believe that her seeds—purchased from the upscale Los Angeles grocer known for the Hailey Bieber smoothie—prompted such a serious response.
“And I was like, what is happening? Is this a joke?” she recalled. “They said it was most likely a chemical on the packaging of these super expensive, fancy, organic, clean sunflower seeds. My protein on the plane!”
Even when the actress offered to throw away the seeds, she said officials needed her to remain put while they investigated the unopened bag.
“I almost missed the flight,” the 55-year-old shared. “It was really like no one would ever believe this! I was texting my publicist saying, ‘I might not get on this plane, and you’re never gonna guess why.’”
And while Pompeo’s protein-packed snack certainly set off alarms, it’s not the only time her dedication to her health has sparked controversy.
In fact, she recently recalled that she was once “so skinny” that “everyone thought I had an eating disorder.”
“The tabloids would say horrible things,” she told People in February. “I just remember being so anxious on red carpets, and the comments about my weight and my body.”
“It was a whole situation with how skinny I was, and there was so much negative attention,” she explained. “Girls today can be gorgeous and thin and thank God we’re not allowed to comment on women’s bodies, even though people do. But I just had so much anxiety and lacked self-esteem because people were so critical of my physicality.”
I know this isn’t the point of the story, but a bag of overpriced organic sunflower seeds was her entire protein for the flight? Dare I say, that is literally eating like a bird! Anyway, I ribbed the TSA agents earlier, but kidding aside, this exact same thing happened to me. Only it wasn’t a bag of sunflower seeds but a big burrito tightly wrapped in tin foil. And I wasn’t detained for an hour while bomb squad came in to assist, but instead had to suffer through the withering gaze of the agents whose facial expressions loudly said, “Damn lady, that is one big ass burrito.” (It was a cross country flight! I need more protein than Ellen!) I can’t believe they didn’t just let her throw the seeds away like she offered. That seems needlessly crazy on the TSA’s part. Personally, I would sooner sit down in place and eat my burrito than trash it, but I guess that’s the difference between me and Ellen. (Or a burrito and sunflower seeds.)
Completely unrelated comment: how have Ellen Pompeo and Renee Zellweger never been cast as sisters in a project? I watched Ellen’s Hulu show Good American Family, and spent the whole first episode thinking, “I KNOW that voice!”
Photos credit: Sebastien Fremont/Starface Photo/Cover Images, T.Jackson/Backgrid, Roger Wong/INSTARimages, Getty and via Instagram