The extremely bad behavior of one Frontier Airlines passenger — who had to be restrained by being duct-taped to his seat — served as viral comedy gold for YouTube creator and comedian The Real Spark.
The Real Spark, whose name is James Bates according to his Instagram, recorded a mock news interview pretending to be “Alfredo Rivera,” purportedly the Frontier flight attendant who subdued the unruly passenger on a flight from Philadelphia to Miami this past weekend.
The video has been viewed more than 2 million times on YouTube alone so far since it was uploaded two days ago.
In The Real Spark’s video, which includes a news-announcer voiceover intro, Bates as “Rivera” says, “Now understand something. I’m a flight attendant. That means I attend the flights.” He continues, “Sometimes our job has us attending to crazy people. If you push us too far, you’re going to have to attend this ass-whooping.”
He describes the passenger: “This man smelled like a pack of Marlboro cigarettes, four shots of Everclear alcohol and regret — so I know something’s about to go down.” Then “Rivera” says he took out a roll of duct tape, at which point the belligerent passenger “got scared and started stuttering, ‘Hold up, wait a minute, something ain’t right.’ I said, “Yeah, we’re about to m-m-m-m-m-m-m-mummify your ass now, boy.’ So we wrapped him up better than any Christmas present you ever seen.” The 93-second video clip concludes with an outro cutting back to two news anchors laughing in disbelief.
Bates’ video has been widely shared on social media with glee, and some people seemingly didn’t know it wasn’t a legit news report. (In a “Good Morning America” segment, Alfredo Rivera was identified as another passenger on the flight who witnessed the altercation.)
Right-wing pundit Piers Morgan tweeted the video clip Friday, saying, “This is utterly fantastic. We need more people like Alfredo in the world.” After social media commenters mocked Morgan for thinking the interview was real, Morgan later claimed he did in fact know the “re-enactment” was a satire.
The passenger at the center of the incident, 22-year-old Maxwell Berry of Norwalk, Ohio, was allegedly intoxicated and groped the breasts of two women flight attendants. Berry has been charged with three misdemeanor counts of assault. His actions on the flight were recorded by another passenger, and that video itself went viral after being shared online by news outlets. The airline said it placed the (real) flight attendants involved on paid leave pending an investigation.
Some of the most popular videos on The Real Spark’s YouTube channel are also fake news reports. The description of the channel says, “Welcome to Spark Nation where you will be entertained by Comedy, Gameplay, Reactions, and more!”
Watch the viral clip of the “Alfredo Rivera” fake news interview:
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