‘Too Fat to Fly’ No More: After Southwest Fiasco, Kevin Smith Loses 65 Pounds

  • Share
  • Read Later

Kevin Smith talks to Joy Behar

One year after getting booted from a Southwest Airlines flight for being “too fat,” actor/writer/producer Kevin Smith has dropped 65 pounds, but clearly still holds onto his resentment.

Smith, who’s best know for his role as Silent Bob in the movie franchise Jay and Silent Bob, spoke to Joy Behar on her CNN show Wednesday about the “traumatizing” experience that led him to lose weight — as well as his penchant for wearing oversized hockey jerseys.

In February 2010, Smith was flying standby on a Southwest flight heading from Oakland to Burbank, when he was asked by a flight attendant to get off the plane because of his size. Smith maintains that he was buckled in, with the armrests down, but the attendants claimed that he violated their “Customer of Size policy,” and that he needed to occupy his originally purchased two seats to fly Southwest.

(More on TIME.com: See more about Southwest Airlines’ plus-size problems)

After disembarking, Smith took to his Twitter to blast the airline for not giving a real reason as to why he was removed from the flight. The resulting media frenzy led Southwest to issue an apology on its blog and field Twitter complaints for weeks.

“At that moment, I was like, you know what? I’ll lose the weight, but I’m not putting on thinner clothes,” he told Behar, who complimented Smith by calling him handsome during the short interview. “Because why? What’s the difference? I’m still the same person I was 65 pounds heavier.”

Smith was on Behar’s show to promote the release of his new movie, Red State, which was recently screened at Sundance Film Festival and is slated for release in October.

Watch a clip of the energetic interview above. (via CNN)

(More on TIME.com: See Kevin Smith in the top 10 tweets of 2010)