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Hilary Swank regrets jumping to conclusions.
During a recent airport visit, the two-time Oscar winner confronted a woman for snapping her photo.
But that’s not what happened. And the bewildered woman in question is the mother of two severely ill children who were on a Make-A-Wish trip.
The actress has since apologized.
What happened with Hilary Swank and the Make-A-Wish mom?
A woman named Jada Bafus recently took her two terminally ill sons, 7-year-old Mason and 4-year-old Jack, to Disneyland on a Make-A-Wish trip.
As is generally the case with anyone visiting Disneyland without living near Anaheim, the trip involved arriving at LAX.
That, Jada described in a social media post, was when she had an unexpected encounter with Hilary Swank.
Unfortunately for both women, the Oscar winner believed that the other woman was attempting to stealthily photograph her.
The results were apparently downright hostile.
“Hilary Swank turned around and snapped at me,” Jada Bafus described in her social media post.
“‘You got what you needed? Get what you came for?’” she quoted the actress as having asked. “‘Enjoy that picture.’”
There was just one problem — Jada said that she hadn’t been photographing her, or anyone else.
“I wasn’t taking a picture of you,” she explained in her post. “I was trying to find my two terminally ill boys at baggage claim.”
It was an odd confrontation. Mostly, however, Jada seemed to laugh it off.
Apologies go a long way
Most of us might have someone write up a post about a random encounter and simply never know about it. Celebrities are more likely to hear about it, however.
To her credit, Hilary Swank reportedly reached out to Jada Bafus directly to apologize.
Jada spoke to The Daily Mail about how the actress had spoken to her on Instagram.
As it turns out, she was concerned about her own children — twin toddlers Aya and Ohm.
She hoped that no one would photograph them.
It sounds like Jada did produce the apology message for The Daily Mail to confirm that it had happened, but asked that the notorious British tabloid not publish its contents.
“I did not expect Hilary Swank to directly talk to me,” she admitted.
Jada characterized her reaction: “It was just like a ‘Woah, I was taken aback.’”
Additionally, she stressed to the tabloid that she knows that the actress had no way of knowing her own circumstances.
“We just don’t know what others are going through,” Jada emphasized. “And I was just a stressed mom trying to navigate LAX.“
What condition do the Bafus boys have?
It’s true that Hilary Swank did not and could not have known that Mason and Jack suffer from Duchenne muscular dystrophy.
This severe form of muscular dystrophy is also the most common variety in the world, especially among boys and men.
Both boys can expect to lose mobility by age 12. And it is only with comprehensive treatment that they’re likely to live into their 30s or 40s.
With decades of life ahead of them, it’s good that there are people and organizations to help them to get as many happy memories that involve travel and more while they are young and relatively mobile.
It will be more difficult to gain experiences like theme park visits when they are older.
Hilary Swank Apologizes After Make-A-Wish Family Confrontation at LAX was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.