14-05-2025
TSA at NYC airport stopped me for having ‘something crazy' in my carry-on — but it's the best thing to have on a flight
Her in-flight meal is ruffling a few feathers.
Some folks are just too chicken to fly. But this bold New Yorker's rotisserie chicken snack simply wouldn't fly with airport security — nor with clucking critics online.
'I just got pulled aside by TSA for having 'something crazy' in my bag,' Chloé Gray, a lifestyle influencer, revealed to a TikTok audience of over 458,000. 'A whole rotisserie chicken.'
Advertisement
3 Chloé Gray, who hates airport food, displays her 'crazy' whole rotisserie chicken from Whole Foods Market in her viral video. She packed it to ensure she met her daily protein goals during her eight-hour, coast-to-coast flight — but got flagged by the Transportation Security Administration in the process.
TikTok/
'I gotta get my protein in [during] the flight,' she said, yanking the cooked bird from Whole Foods Market out of her carry-on at Newark Liberty International Airport — a hub currently embroiled in so much chaos that the last thing it needs is poultry problems.
'This is how you give yourself a first-class experience without paying for first class,' added Gray, who was traveling eight hours cross-country, from New Jersey to California, with a layover.
Advertisement
'This is going to hold me over for the entire day, pretty much.'
Gray's in the 60% of Americans looking to leaner meats — such as fish, turkey and chicken, of course — to help them achieve leaner bodies, increase muscle mass, and enhance their strength and performance.
The health-foodie's chicken hack, however, didn't quite land with a flock of frequent flyers on the internet.
And for that, she's being virtually roasted on a spit.
Advertisement
3 Virtual vultures blasted Gray for her outré flight snack, calling its smell 'diabolical.'
–
'No-fly list,' demanded an outraged onlooker, suggesting Gray — and her fowl chow — be banned from the friendly skies.
'Someone sitting next to me on a plane pulling out a rotisserie chicken would be my last straw,' another squawked.
'Nooo,' a separate cynic cried, 'The strong smell on the flight is diabolical.'
Advertisement
'I fear I've never sided with TSA before this,' an equally stunned naysayer wrote, while another cock-a-doodle-do detractor scolded her, 'You. Are. Out. Of. Your. Mind.'
3 Gray, conscious of her blood sugar levels, claims to struggle with food anxiety, which causes her to travel with protein-rich snacks everywhere she goes. She is shown above chowing down on her in-flight meal — 'I love exercising my free will,' she wrote over the clip.
TikTok/
But Gray, who was ultimately permitted to lug the grub onto the plane, claims to have a perfectly good reason for packing the hot commodity.
'I get scared at the thought of being trapped for hours without something to eat — you could call it food anxiety,' she explained to People, noting her distain for junky airport food. 'For health reasons, specifically managing my blood sugar, I usually try to bring something on the healthier side to give me clean energy.'
And although she concedes that mixing together a protein-rich salad or bagging up some seasoned nuts would have been less troublesome, similarly nutritious alternatives, Gray says her controversial to-go fare best suited her swag.
'I grabbed the chicken because it was conventionally packaged, it has a chic top handle which makes it easy to carry throughout the airport, and it's easily disposable,' she chimed.
'Some people travel with designer bags,' said Gray. 'But my designer bag just happened to be a bag of rotisserie chicken.'
