Woman praises 'hero' who stood up to fat-shaming seatmate calling her a 'smelly fatty' during flight

A woman recently recounted how she was fat-shamed on a flight by the man sitting next to her, and how her faith in humanity was restored after the kind act of a stranger.

Savannah Phillips said she was heartbroken after she saw the man sitting next to her on a flight between Oklahoma and Illinois texting someone that he was sitting next to a “smelly fatty.”

“Before I knew it, I could feel hot, salty tears coming down my face,” she wrote on Facebook.

“I was shocked, and it was like confirmation of the negative things I think about myself on a daily basis.”

Phillips said she always tries to pick her seat so no one has to be “uncomfortable” sitting next to her, but because her flight was changed she had her seat assigned to her.

“I’m not the biggest person on the airplane, but I’m not the smallest,” she said. “My worst nightmare is someone being uncomfortable because they have to sit next to me.

“I sat and cried silently, hoping this guy didn’t try to make small talk, because I didn’t trust how I would react and I didn’t want to get kicked off the plane.”

After being told the plane was going to be delayed, Phillips starting cringing at the thought of having to sit next to the man for longer than necessary. That’s when a man behind them, Chase Irwin, spoke up.

Irwin tapped the fat-shamer on the shoulder and asked to talk to him. He said they were going to switch seats because he knew the man was texting about Phillips and he was “not putting up with that.”

The man swapped seats and then comforted Phillips, who was visibly upset by what had happened.

“He encouraged me not to let that guy get to me and that everything was going to be fine,” Phillips said.

Irwin told News Channel 5 that he was going to wait until the end of the flight to say something, but didn’t want Phillips sitting next to the man the whole flight.

“It really gets to me deep down when I see someone crying, and when I saw her crying it really hit me hard and I actually got sick to my stomach,” he said.

Phillips, meanwhile, has called Irwin her “hero.”

Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:
Ashley Graham shares new underwear campaign after sending message to ‘haters’
Anne Hathaway sends preemptive message to her fat-shamers: ‘It’s not me, it’s you’
A sports site fat-shamed a guy working out and people aren’t having it

Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for nonstop inspiration delivered fresh to your feed, every day.