Mitt Romney gets in scuffle with rap star

Published 8:51 pm Saturday, February 20, 2010

BOSTON — A rapper with the Grammy-nominated club act LMFAO said former Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney first touched him — and not the other way around — during a confrontation aboard an Air Canada flight that was preparing to take off from Vancouver, B.C.

Sky Blu, whose given name is Skyler Gordy, said in a video posted Friday on TMZ.com that he was trying to go to sleep when he leaned his seat back in the coach section of a the Vancouver-to-Los Angeles flight Monday. He says Romney loudly told him several times to straighten it, as is required until takeoff under commercial flight regulations.

Then, he said, Romney reached forward and grabbed his shoulder.

“I just react — boom — get off me, you know,” Gordy said in the video, taking a swing through the air as he speaks. “And I didn’t take it any further than that. I just wanted the man not to touch me; that’s it.”

Gordy said that Romney’s wife, Ann, screamed and that the plane returned to the gate before two police officers escorted him off. After being detained briefly, he was allowed to buy a ticket for another flight.

Romney aides said this week that Romney told them he thought the other person was in a band.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Sgt. Rob Vermeulen confirmed there was an incident on the flight, but he refused to release the names of those involved because no one was arrested.

Shortly after the confrontation, Fehrnstrom said the passenger became “physically violent” with Romney, but the former Massachusetts governor did not retaliate and instead let the authorities deal with it.

Gordy said Romney grabbed him with a “condor grip,” as a sidekick play-acts the scene and adds: “Vulcan grip.”

Gordy then outlines his objection, saying, “I’m not your prey. I’m not a salmon going upstream. You’re not going to rip me up.”

The rapper said he was on the flight because he and his group, LMFAO, had been performing in Vancouver, where the Olympic Winter Games are being held. The Romneys were also there as special guests after Mitt Romney’s work heading the 2002 Games in Salt Lake City.

Gordy said that after the plane pulled away from the gate, he put a jacket over his head and was trying to go to sleep when he felt “too upright.”

After he reclined his seat, he said, he heard Romney say repeatedly and loudly, “Sir, sir, put your seat up.”